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BR  477  .J63 

Johnstoun,  James. 

A  century  of 

Chris 

tian 

progress 

1 

^ 


A   CENTURY 


OP 


CHEISTIAN    PROGRESS 


SHOWING   ALSO 


THE  INCREASE  OF  PROTESTANTISM 


AND 


THE  DECLINE  OF  POPERY. 


REV.    JAMES    JOHNSTON,    E.S.S. 

EDITOR   OF   THE    "REPORT   OF   THE   CONFERENCE   ON   THE    FOREIGN   MISSIONS 

OF   THE    WORLD," 

AUTHOR   OF    "A   CENTURV   OF    PROTESTANT  MISSIONS," 

"OUR   EDUCATIONAL   POLICY   IN    INDIA," 

"ABSTRACT   AND    ANALYSIS    OF   THE   REPORT   OF   THE   IMPERIAL   COMMISSION 

ON    EDUCATION   IN    INDIA,"   ETC.    ETC. 


^cconti  (£tJitton. 


FLEMIKG  H.  REVELL, 

NEW  YORK:  I  CHICAGO: 

12    BIBLE    HOUSE.  1      148  &  150  MADISON  STREET. 


PREFACE  TO  SECOND  EDITION. 

The  first  edition  of  "  A  Century  of  Christian  Progress  " 
having  heen  sold,  all  that  is  essential  for  demonstrative 
proof  is  reissued  in  its  present  form,  so  as  to  secure, 
by  a  wider  circulation,  the  objects  for  which  it  was 
originally  published ;  amongst  others  the  following  : — 

1st.  To  encourage  hope  in  the  evangelisation  of  all 
nations,  by  showing  the  progress  which  Christianity, 
as  a  whole,  has  made  in  the  past,  and  specially  during 
the  last  century.  There  are  now  400  millions  of 
nominal  Christians  in  the  world.  Fully  800  millions 
out  of  the  1400  millions  of  the  population  of  the  earth 
live  under  the  government  of  Christian  States.  With 
the  exception  of  savage  tribes,  no  nation  is  under  the 
independent  rule  of  an  idolatrous  government.  The 
idols,  though  not  abolished,  are  dethroned. 

2nd.  To  show  the  growing  ascendency  of  Protes- 
tantism, and,  owing  to  its  slow-  rate  of  increase,  the 
relative  decline  of  Popery. 

3rd.  To  make  Protestants  feel  their  obligation  to 
spread  the  religion  to  which  they  owe  the  unparalleled 
position  of  power  and  influence  which,  in  Providence, 
they  occupy :  with  their  135  millions  stationed  in 
almost  every  part  of  the  habitable  globe,  and  with 
3  MILLIONS  of  converts  scattered  among  the  heathen  of 
every  race,  it  needs  but  the  breath  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
to  infuse  life  into  them,  and  the  evangelisation  of  the 
world  is  as  sure  as  the  promises  of  God. 

4th.  To  warn  Protestants  of  the  danger  and  folly  of 
mimicking  the  rites  and  yielding  to  the  seductions  of 
Popery,  which  has,  as  a  religious  system,  as  a  moral 
influence,  and  as  a  political  power,  proved  itself,  where 
dominant,  an  utter  failure.  Protestant  statesmen, 
ecclesiastics,  and  ritualists  are  now  its  greatest 
dupes,  or,  are  making  dupes  of  the  ignorant. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PAGE 

The  Fajiily,  or  Birth-rate  of  Progress     ,        .        .  i 

1.  Returns 6 

2.  Laws  Avliicli  regulate  population      ....  8 

3.  Characteristics   of  the   three  forms  of  religion  in 

Europe 17 

4.  Increase  of  population  under  these  different  forms  21 

Conclusion 27 

Appendices 28 


CHAPTER  ir. 
Nationalities  of  Eurore 

Effect  of  religious  life  on  population    .         .         .        . 

The  Reformation 

Bertillon  on  the  comparative  decay  of  the  power  of 
France — 

1.  Increase  of  pojuilation  under  Roman  Catholic  and 

Protestant  religions 

2.  Increase  under  Protestantism,  Popery,  and  Greek 

Churcli 

3.  Prospects  of  population  in  Europe 

4.  Rates  of  increase  in  latest  returns 


36 
36 
39 


46 
49 
56 


Appendices 62 


CHAPTER  III. 

Progress  of  Christian  Nations  compared  with  those 
under  the  Dominant  Religions  of  the  World 

1.  "  Religion,"  how  understood 

2.  Religion  and  Race    . 

3.  The  population  of  China 

4.  The  religion  of  China 

5.  Roman  Catholic  Powers 

6.  Greek  Church  Powers 

7.  Protestant  Powers    . 

8.  Effects  of  British  rule 
Appendix 


73 
76 
^3 
89 
93 
93 
94 
98 
104 


A 

CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  FAMILY,  OR  BIRTH-RATE  OF  PROGRESS. 

The  family  was  the  institution  originally  de- 
signed for  the  preservation  and  propagation  of 
religion,  and  but  for  the  social  and  religious 
disorganisation  of  society  caused  by  the  fall 
of  man,  it  would  have  been  sufficient  for  the 
peopling  of  the  earth  with  a  righteous  and 
happy  race.  In  the  Patriarchal  period  no  other 
method  was  devised,  and  even  when  Abraham 
was  chosen  as  the  founder  of  a  new  dispensation, 
the  choice  was  made  on  the  ground  of  his  being 
the  type  of  a  family  man.^ 

The  family  has  always  been,  and  will  always 
be  in  this  world,  the  basis  of  social  order,  national 
purity,  and  Christian  life  ;  but  it  is  not  of  itself 
sufficient  to  meet  the  case  of  a  general  apostasy, 

^  Gen.  xviii.  19. 


2  A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

such  as  that  which  the  Church  of  Christ  had 
to  face  eighteen  hundred  years  ago.  It  is  not 
sufficient  in  presence  of  the  world  as  it  now 
confronts  the  Church — a  world  in  which  two- 
thirds  are  living  in  heathen  or  Mohammedan 
darkness,  and  of  the  remaining  third,  two  parts 
are  under  the  delusive  or  imperfect  teaching  of 
the  Eoman  Catholic  and  Greek  Churches.  With 
these  facts  before  the  Protestant  Church,  to 
which  we  address  ourselves,  this  is  not  the  time 
to  rest  content  with  the  mere  natural  increase 
of  the  family  or  birth-rate,  to  which,  however,  it 
is  important  to  call  attention,  as  a  source  of 
encouragement,  and  to  show  the  resources  on 
which  we  may  rely  in  the  aggressive  work  to 
which  we  are  now  called. 

The  birth-rate  is  at  the  best  a  preservative  and 
expansive  principle.  It  cannot  be  aggressive.  It 
does  not  take  account  of  those  outside  the  limits 
of  the  circle  of  the  religious  stock.  It  scarcely 
seeks  to  save  the  fallen  members  of  the  family. 
In  itself  it  has  its  place  and  importance  as  a  con- 
servative element  in  religious  society ;  but  from 
its  nature  it  cannot  reach  "those  that  are  with- 
out." It  is  the  Jewish  element  in  the  Church. 
The  aggressive  is  Christian.  The  difference  be- 
tAveen  the  two  may  be  expressed  in  the  words 
addressed  to  Abraham  on  the  one  hand,  and  to 
the  Apostles  on  the  other.     To  the  former  the 


THE  BIRTH-RATE  OF  PROGRESS.  3 

invitation  is  to  come  to  *'  a  land  which  I  will 
show  thee ; "  to  the  latter,  "  go  ye  unto  all  the 
world,  and  preach  the  Gospel  to  every  creature." 
The  Church  has  only  obeyed  this  command  by 
fits  and  starts.  Her  tendency  has  ever  been  to 
fall  back  into  the  Jewish  attitude  of  isolation 
and  inaction. 

Within  a  generation  of  the  great  Eeformation 
of  the  sixteenth  century  the  Protestant  Church 
became  a  rigid  body,  fixed  within  the  boundaries 
which  it  had  reached  by  a  brief  conflict  and  a 
glorious  victory.  These  boundaries,  instead  of 
being  made  the  base  of  future  conquests,  became 
the  bulwarks  of  a  weak  and  timid  Christianity, 
contented  with  itself,  and  frowning  on  those 
without,  to  whom  it  stood  in  the  attitude  of 
defiance — they  were  regarded  as  enemies  to  be 
resisted,  not  sinners  to  be  saved.  This  unhappy 
relation  of  the  two  parties  was  fatal  to  the  pro- 
secution of  the  work  so  auspiciously  begun.  For 
two  centuries  they  kept  on  the  even  tenor  of 
their  way,  the  Popish,  gaining  more  than  the 
Protestant,  faith.  The  spiritual  weapons  of  their 
warfare  were  laid  aside,  their  mutual  relations 
only  disturbed  by  the  carnal  weapons  of  hostile 
armies,  and  the  scarcely  less  carnal  disputes  of 
angry  ecclesiastics. 

The  division  of  parties  was  the  more  marked 
and  permanent,  from  being  drawn  on  the  well 


4  A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

recognised  lines  of  race  and  language.  It  seems 
that  the  Saxon  and  allied  races  have  as  a  rule 
become  the  stout  defenders  of  the  Protestant 
faith,  while  those  with  Celtic  blood  and  speak- 
ing languages  formed  on  the  Latin  tongue  have 
clung  to  the  religion  of  Eome.  One  of  the 
causes  of  this  preference  may  have  been,  that 
those  nations  of  Europe  which  were  so  long 
and  completely  under  the  dominion  of  the 
Eoman  Empire  as  to  lose  their  native  languages 
became  assimilated  to  the  mother  country  and 
the  mother  church,  while  the  fierce  and  inde- 
pendent tribes  in  the  east  and  north  of  Europe 
along  with  their  mixed  descendants  in  England, 
who  resisted  so  long  and  resented  the  yoke  of 
Pagan  Eome,  had  the  same  aversion  to  the 
spiritual  tyranny  of  her  ecclesiastical  successor. 
But  this  only  brings  out  one  of  the  characteristic 
features  of  the  two  races — characteristics  bred 
in  the  bone  and  running  in  the  blood.  There 
are  intellectual  qualities,  moral  tendencies,  and 
sesthetic  tastes  which  sufficiently  account  for 
the  preferences  of  the  different  religions  by  the 
two  races. 

Until  a  comparatively  recent  time,  the  third 
great  family  of  Christians  scarcely  formed  an 
element  in  the  religion  of  Europe.  But  since 
the  western  extension  of  the  Eussian  Empire, 
the  Greek  Church  has  become  a  powerful  factor, 


THE  BIRTH-RATE  OF  PROGRESS.  5 

and  is  every  year  becoming  more  important, 
owing  to  the  rapid  rate  of  increase  through  the 
family  or  birth-rate.  With  ample  territory  for 
expansion,  and  habits  of  primitive  simplicity  in 
its  people,  llussia  bids  fair  to  become  a  por- 
tentous power — apart  from  conquest.  It  makes 
great  strides  through  natural  increase. 

So  long  as  the  population  of  Europe  was  nearly 
stationary,  the  numerical  relations  of  the  Pro- 
testant and  Popish  parties  remained  substan- 
tially unchanged ;  but  with  the  new  state  of 
matters  inaugurated  by  the  revival  at  the  end  of 
last  century,  and  increased  in  the  present,  a 
change  of  great  importance  was  brought  about. 
The  Protestant  party  began  to  shoot  ahead,  and 
as  the  rate  of  the  general  increase  of  population 
was  augmented  under  the  new  conditions  of 
social  and  national  life,  it  is  difficult,  perhaps 
impossible,  to  estimate  exactly  the  population 
of  Europe  prior  to  what  may  be  called  the  census 
period  of  history.  The  introduction  of  the 
census  at  the  commencement  of  the  present 
centuiy  may  well  mark  an  era  in  the  history 
of  the  world,  so  great  are  the  social  and  moral 
benefits  which  have  sprung  out  of  the  discoveries 
of  which  statistical  facts  have  been  the  origin. 
Before  that  time,  there  were  rough  methods  by 
wdiich  an  approximation  could  be  made  to  the 
number  and  increase  of  the  population.     Regis- 


6  A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

ters  of  the  baptisms,  marriages,  and  deaths  of 
the  members  of  both  Eoman  Cathohc  and  Pro- 
testant churches  were  kept  in  all  the  countries 
of  Europe  with  more  or  less  care,  and  from  these 
a  laborious  student  could  form  a  tolerably  correct 
estimate.^ 


I.  Returns. 

It  is  generally  agreed  that  the  population  of 
Europe  did  not  materially  increase,  if  it  increased 
at  all,  from  the  days  of  Julius  Csesar  to  the 
Reformation — a  period  of  1500  years  of  stag- 
nation of  the  population,  under  the  depressing 
political  influences,  despondency,  and  misery, 
through  the  prevalence  of  war,  famine,  disease, 
and  pestilence.  It  is  probable  that  the  popula- 
tion of  Europe  did  not  exceed  100  millions,  or 
at  the  outside  1 20  millions,  at  the  two  extremes, 
the  beginning  and  the  end  of  that  long  period 
of  1 500  years.  If  the  population  of  Europe  had 
increased  from  the  beginning  of  the  Christian 
era  at  the  same  rate  it  has  increased  of  late,  it 
would  have  doubled  the  hundred  millions  by 
the  end  of  the  first  century,  and  at  the  end  of  the 
second  it  would  have  numbered  400  millions. 
But  speculation  is  impossible  and  vain  for  that 
period ;  it  is  difficult  enough  for  the  present. 

^  Appendix. 


THE  BIRTH-RATE  OF  PROGRESS.  7 

Our  own  country,  with  all  its  misfortunes, 
was  much  better  situated  than  her  continental 
neighbours.  The  better  fortune  of  her  inhabi- 
tants is  indicated  by  her  old  epithet  of  Merry 
England.  Yet  England  increased  slowly  in 
early  as  compared  with  modern  times.  It  is 
computed  that  the  population  at  the  time  of 
the  invasion  by  Csesar  w^as  from  800,000  to 
1,000,000,  and  it  took  more  than  1000  years  to 
double  its  scanty  population.  At  the  compila- 
tion of  the  Doomsday  Book  in  the  year  1086 
it  appears  to  have  been  from  about  1,800,000 
to  2,000,000.  From  that  time  it  increased  more 
rapidly.  It  probably  doubled  its  population  in 
the  next  500  years,  and  in  the  beginning  of  the 
eighteenth  century  it  was  a  little  over  5,000,000. 
It  increased  by  1,000,000  in  the  next  50  years ; 
but  so  rapid  was  the  increase  during  the  re- 
mainder of  that  century  that  in  18 10  it  was 
over  10,000,000,  doubling  itself  in  iio  years, 
Scotland  having  doubled  its  population  in  1 20 
years. 

From  the  commencement  of  the  present  cen- 
tury the  rate  of  increase  of  the  population  of 
Europe  and  America  is  no  longer  a  matter  of 
estimates  or  uncertainty.  It  is  a  well  ascer- 
tained fact  in  every  country  that  lays  claim 
to  civilisation. 


8  A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS, 

2.  The  laivs  ivhich  regulate  population. 

The  natural  laws  which  regulate,  generally, 
the  rate  of  increase  of  population  are  such  as 
these : — 

First.  A  sufficient  area  of  productive  territoiy 
for  expansion,  or  the  means  of  exchange  for 
foreign  food  supplies. 

Second.  A  settled  government,  capable  of 
preserving  peace  at  home  and  security  from 
invasion. 

Third.  Good  sanitary  and  moral  conditions 
of  society. 

The  first  part  of  the  first  of  these  laws,  an 
ample  area,  was  sufficient  in  the  earlier  states 
of  society ;  the  second  part  applies  to  the  more 
artificial  conditions  of  modern  society.  To  what 
extent  it  is  safe  for  any  country  to  trust  to  such 
an  artificial  source  of  supply  of  the  necessaries 
of  life  is  a  question  we  cannot  at  present  dis- 
cuss, but  we  may  call  attention  to  important 
historic  facts.  First,  the  discovery  of  new  coun- 
tries of  vast  extent  and  agricultural  resources, 
and  second,  the  development  of  safe  and  easy 
means  of  transit,  were  made,  in  the  course  of 
Providence,  in  good  time  to  provide  an  outlet 
for  the  superabundant  population  of  the  Old 
World ;  and  third,  these  discoveries  and  inven- 
tions  have   been   the   salvation  of  the    Saxon 


THE  BIRTH-RATE  OF  PROGRESS.  g 

races,  and  the  means  for  the  preservation  of  the 
Protestant  religion.  These,  which  have  been  the 
predominant  migratory  and  manufacturing  races, 
have  found  vent  for  their  redundant  population, 
and  at  the  same  time  the  means  of  supporting  a 
much  larger  population  at  home,  so  as  greatly  to 
outstrip  the  races  by  which  they  were  surrounded 
on  the  Continent  or  hemmed  in  by  sea.  The 
limited  area  of  the  Protestant  Powers  would  soon 
have  limited  their  increase,  or  have  reduced  them 
to  poverty  and  decay.  England  was  at  the  point 
of  famine  at  the  beginning  of  this  century ;  and 
but  for  emigration  and  commerce,  would  have 
been  ere  this  powerless,  if  she  had  not  perished, 
or  become  a  poor  province  of  France,  as  trouble- 
some as  Ireland  is  to  Britain. 

In  requiring  good  moral  as  well  as  sanitary 
conditions  in  the  third  law,  we  use  the  word 
moral  in  the  inferior  sense  of  such  a  regard 
for  life,  especially  in  rearing  of  the  young,  as 
is  necessary  to  the  increase  of  the  race.  With 
these  conditions,  the  human  race  will  increase 
at  such  a  rate  as  to  double  itself  in  each  period 
of  from  twenty-five  to  thirty  years.  The  theory 
that  the  human  race  increases  in  a  geometrical 
ratio,  while  food  supplies  only  increase  in  an 
arithmetical  ratio,  seems  to  us  both  an  erroneous 
opinion  and  an  awkward  expression,  and  has 
led   to  much   false   reasoning   and    some  very 


lo         A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

questionable  conclusions.  Tood  of  most  kinds 
increases  in  a  geometrical  ratio  as  well  as  the 
human  race,  and  that  at  a  much  more  rapid 
rate.  Cereal  and  vegetable  productions  yield 
yearly  fifty  or  an  hundred  fold,  so  as  to  allow  of 
man  and  animals  having  their  share  and  leaving 
enough  for  reproduction.  The  same  is  true  of 
the  increase  of  animals,  fishes,  and  fowls,  only 
to  a  more  limited  degree,  necessary  for  human 
food.  The  limit  of  the  food  supply  does  not  lie 
in  the  ratio  of  its  increase,  but  in  the  limitation 
of  the  area  of  land  on  which  it  can  be  produced. 
Here,  and  here  only,  is  the  limit  to  the  food 
supply  of  the  human  race ;  and  until  that  limit 
is  reached  it  is  worse  than  folly  to  devise  means 
for  restraining  the  increase  of  men.  The  saying 
of  Malthus,  that  "  God  appears  to  have  taken 
great  care  of  the  species  and  very  little  of  the 
individual,"  is  based  on  this  misconception  of 
the  true  and  only  limit  to  the  food  supply  for 
the  use  of  man ;  and  if  he  had  looked  more 
carefully  into  the  teaching  of  the  Book  from 
which  he  took  his  texts  on  Sundays,  he  would 
have  found  the  solution  of  the  difficulties  which 
so  distressed  his  generous  spirit  during  the 
week.  The  laws  of  Nature,  the  spur  of  necessity, 
and  the  commands  of  Heaven,  unite  in  pressing 
on  man  the  duty  "  to  increase  and  multiply  and 
replenish  the  earth ; "  and,  as  we  shall  show,  it 


THE  BIRTH-RATE  OF  PROGRESS.  ii 

is  only  as  man  obeys  that  law  that  the  human 
family  can  enjoy  the  blessings  of  health  and 
happiness,  and  make  progressive  advances  in  the 
intellectual,  social,  and  moral  development  of 
the  race  in  harmony  with  the  original  design  of 
its  creation.  It  is  the  neglect  of  this  law  which 
has  led  to  the  immorality  and  misery  of  over- 
crowded countries  and  sweltering  slums  of  our 
great  cities,  for  which  Nature's  great  law  of 
migration  is  the  only  effectual  remedy.^ 

It  is  true  that  there  will  be  a  limit  to  this 
form  of  expansion ;  but  ere  that  time  arrives, 
even  with  our  present  clumsy  and  wasteful 
abuse  of  the  food  provided  by  Nature,  discoveries 
may  be  made  which  will  increase  the  means  of 
production  and  economy  in  its  use ;  and  when 
a  final  limit  is  reached,  higher  and  better  con- 
ditions may  be  in  store  for  the  family  of  man. 
Finality  is  not  stamped  on  the  present  condi- 
tions of  the  human  race.  The  laborious  efforts 
of  writers  like  Sadler  and  Sir  Archibald  Alison 
to  justify  the  ways  of  Providence  by  denying 
the  possibility  of  such  a  rate  of  increase  of 
population  as  Malthus  asserted  and  history 
has  proved,  are  uncalled  for,  pernicious,  and 
illogical. 

Before  proceeding  further,  it  is  desirable  to 
call  attention  to  a  fact  which  gives  great  signi- 

^  See  note  at  end  of  chapter. 


12         A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

ficance  and  importance  to  our  inquiry,  viz., 
that  wherever  population  is  arrested  or  begins 
to  decrease,  it  is  a  sure  sign  of  degeneracy  and 
a  cause  of  national  decay.  This  will  appear  in 
our  statistics  as  a  fact,  and  will,  before  w^e  close, 
be  shown  to  be  a  natural  cause. 

Not  to  burden  those  of  our  readers  who  are 
not  fond  of  statistical  tables,  we  give  at  the  end 
of  this  chapter  a  table  (I.)  drawn  up  by  the 
well-known  Italian  statistician,  Signer  Luigi 
Bodio,  showing  the  increase  of  the  population 
of  Europe  and  America  at  the  beginning  and  end 
of  the  present  century,  and  another  (Table  11.) 
showing  the  rate  of  increase.  It  will  help  the 
uninitiated  to  understand  its  significance  if  I 
state  that  an  increase  of  i  per  cent,  per  annum 
doubles  a  population  in  seventy  years,  and  a 
rate  of  increase  of .  70  per  cent,  per  annum  will 
double  it  in  a  hundred  years,  and  so  on  for  all 
the  percentages  given.^  Signer  Bodio's  table 
is  accepted  by  all  who  have  studied  the  subject 

*  We  have  not  given  fractional  periods.     The  following  very  neat 

formula,  which  is  largely  employed  in  calculating  the  period  of  doubling 

in  compound  interest  and  similar  problems  by  actuaries,  will  enable 

any  one  to  calculate  this  period   for   any  of   the  countries  given  by 

Bodio.     Take  69.3  and   divide   by  the   rate  of   increase  or   interest, 

and  add  .35  to  the  result,  or  in  arithmetical  form  thus,  I  being  equal 

69.3 
to  Interest  or  Increase  :   — y-  +-35   added  to  the  result.     Example  at 

I  per  cent,  of  increase:  —-+35  gives  a  few  days  less  than 
seventy  years. 


THE  BIRTH-RATE  OF  PROGRESS.  13 

as  fully  trustworthy  ;  amongst  the  rest,  by  Block, 
Haushofer,  the  writer  in  the  last  edition  of  the 
Encyclopedia  Britannica,  and  others.  It  is 
compiled  from  the  most  authentic  documents 
from  every  country  in  Europe,  to  which,  as  the 
statistical  agent  of  the  Italian  Government,  he 
has  the  fullest  access.  From  other  sources  we 
learn,  wdth  equal  certainty,  that  the  population 
of  Europe  was  in  1 886  not  less  than  330  millions. 
We  have  made  it  up  to  that  year  by  taking  the 
official  numbers  of  the  latest  census  returns  and 
adding  the  increase  for  the  years  required  to 
bring  them  up  to  that  date,  by  the  help  of  the 
rates  given  for  the  later  periods  in  Bodio's 
table    (III.). 

III.  It  is  impossible  to  give  the  exact  number 
of  the  population  of  Europe  a  hundred  years 
ago.  Gibbon,  Lowndes,  and  Debrett,  Sharon 
Turner,  M'Culloch,  and  others,  estimate  it  at 
from  120  millions  to  144  millions.  We  take  a 
rather  larger  figure,  by  calculating  back  from  the 
rate  of  increase  at  the  different  periods  as  given 
by  Bodio,  and  from  other  trustworthy  sources. 
It  seems  impossible  that  the  population  of  such 
an  area  under  the  known  conditions  of  society 
could  have  risen  from  1 20  to  330  millions  during 
that  hundred  years — an  increase  of  2 10  millions. 
Besides,  it  leaves  little  increase  from  the  Ilefor- 
mation  to  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century. 


14         A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

By  this  method,  which  rests  on  well-ascertained 
data,  we  estimate  the  population  in  1 786  at  1 50 
millions.  Even  this  figure  implies  an  increase 
which  seems  incredible  at  first  sight ;  but  in  view 
of  known  facts  of  recent  date,  it  is  quite  within 
the  limits  of  credibility. 

But  for  the  means  of  accurate  observation 
brought  within  our  reach  by  the  census 
returns  of  the  present  century,  the  effects  of 
the  revival  of  religious,  social,  scientific,  and 
commercial  life  at  the  close  of  last  century 
would  have  been  incredible.  In  nothing  have 
these  effects  been  more  striking  than  in  the 
increase  of  population.  Even  with  the  modifi- 
cation we  have  introduced,  the  increase  is 
startling.^ 

Take  the  figures  in  these  tables  not  as  Arabic 
numerals,  but  as  representing  living  men,  wo- 
men, and  children,  and  what  a  change  in  the 
aspect  of  this  continent,  in  the  eyes  of  God  and 
men,  at  the  close  and  the  commencement  of  the 
hundred  years.  Look  at  them  in  their  social 
aspect.  We  know  from  experience  that  a  steady 
increase  of  population  only  takes  place  when  the 

^  The  result  is  suflBciently  striking  stated  thus  : — 

Population  of  Europe  in  1786  .         .         .150  millions. 
„  „  1S86  .         .         .330        „ 

Increase  in  a  hundred  years      .         .         ,     iSo        „ 
See  note  at  end  of  chapter. 


THE  BIRTH-RATE  OF  PROGRESS.  15 

conditions  are  favourable.  These  figures  tell 
of  comparative  prosperity,  abundance,  and  com- 
fort. They  tell  of  mutual  loves  and  wedded 
bliss,  of  happy  homes  and  merry  groups  of 
children  playing  in  the  streets.  They  are  the 
signs  of  peaceful  governments  and  contented 
peoples.  These  conditions  are,  however,  com- 
parative. We  know  from  present  experience 
that  a  large  amount  of  misery  and  disorder  pre- 
vail in  the  midst  of  this  rapid  increase,  enough 
to  make  us  doubt  of  the  maxim  of  our  statisti- 
cians about  prosperity  and  general  happiness 
being  the  conditions  of  increase.  But  if  we 
compare  the  state  of  the  populations  of  Europe 
now  with  what  they  were  in  former  times,  we 
shall  find  the  difference  in  the  security  of  life 
and  property,  the  comforts  of  home,  the  sanitary 
conditions  of  society,  the  absence  of  plagues, 
pestilences  and  famines ;  and  we  have  but  to 
turn  our  eyes  to  many  regions  of  Asia  and  Africa 
to  see  the  causes  which  arrest  population  now, 
as  they  did  in  historic  periods.  And  on  the 
other  hand,  we  have  only  to  look  to  new  and 
well-governed  countries  with  ample  territory, 
like  the  United  States  and  our  Colonies,  to 
see  how  much  more  rapidly  our  people  might 
increase  under  favourable  conditions.  While 
the  old  countries  of  Europe  as  a  whole  only 
double   their  population    in    about    a   hundred 


i6         A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

years,  Scotland  in  seventy,  and  England  at  the 
rate  of  every  fifty  years,  these  new  lands  double 
theirs  in  twenty-five  years,  and  the  black  popu- 
lation of  the  United  States  in  little  more  than 
twenty  years — a  grave  problem  for  the  govern- 
ment of  that  country.  If  the  conditions  of 
society  in  former  ages  had  allowed  of  the  same 
rate  of  increase  as  in  these  times,  the  utmost 
limits  of  population  of  the  globe  would  have 
been  far  overpassed  long  ago.  The  great  change 
in  the  present  century  gives  a  terrible  conception 
of  the  wretched  state  of  society  in  former  times, 
that  made  even  a  tenth  part  of  the  rate  of  in- 
crease impossible. 

But  look  at  these  figures  in  the  light  of  their 
religious  significance,  and  they  teach  a  most 
important  lesson — a  lesson  full  of  stimulus  and 
encouragement  to  the  Protestant  Church.  They 
bring  out  the  fact,  that  the  Protestant  population 
of  the  world  is  increasing  much  more  rapidly 
than  the  Roman  Catholic,  giving  it  year  by  year 
a  greater  numerical  strength  and  moral  prepon- 
derance. The  political  significance  of  this  fact 
we  shall  call  attention  to  in  another  chapter. 


THE  BIRTH-RATE  OF  PROGRESS.  17 


3.   Characteristics  of  the  three  religions  of 
Europe  which  influence  population. 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  make  a  com- 
parison between  the  progress  of  population  under 
different  forms  of  the  Christian  reh'gion  in 
Europe,  but  we  cannot  do  so  without  referring 
to  the  painful  necessity  for  treating  these  three 
unhappy  divisions  of  the  one  original  body  as 
not  only  separate  but  antagonistic  forces.  The 
strongest  evidence  of  this  antagonism  is  that 
they  have  mutually  persecuted  one  another 
when  that  was  the  form  of  manifesting  oppo- 
sition, and  that  to  this  day  they  each  regard  it 
as  a  duty  to  support  missions  for  the  express 
and  avowed  object  of  making  converts  from  one 
another.  Protestants  have  their  missions  to 
Eoman  Catholics,  and,  to  a  much  greater  extent, 
Roman  Catholics  have  their  missions  to  convert 
Protestants.  They  are  quite  consistent,  from 
their  standpoint,  in  spending  far  more  money 
and  effort  on  the  conversion  of  Protestants  in 
England  and  America  than  on  the  heathen  of 
India,  China,  and  Africa.  The  souls  of  Saxons 
have  a  peculiar  value.  They  have  not  only 
capacities  for  enjoyment  in  another  sphere; 
they  have  special  uses  in  this  world  as  a 
great  force  for  the  maintenance  and  extension 

B 


i8         A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

of  what  they  honestly  consider  the  true  and 
only  Church. 

In  calling  attention  to  these  three  forms  of 
Christianity,  we  are  under  no  necessity  of  saying 
a  word  about  the  doctrinal  opinions  of  the  dif- 
ferent Churches.  It  is  quite  sufficient  for  our 
purpose  to  point  out  one  or  two  characteristic 
features  of  their  practice,  which  are  openly 
avowed  by  each,  and  are  patent  to  all  men.  The 
first  is  the  position  which  the  Bible  occupies, 
and  the  treatment  it  receives  from  each  of  these 
Churches.  All  profess  to  appeal  to  it  as  the 
ultimate  standard  of  faith  and  practice,  but  there 
is  a  characteristic  diflference  in  the  way  in  which 
it  is  regarded  and  treated  by  each.  The  Roman 
Catholic  Church  holds  that  it  is  not  safe  to  put 
the  book  into  the  hands  of  the  laity  unaccom- 
panied by  an  authoritative  interpretation  or  an 
authoritative  interpreter ;  and  they  put  certain 
other  apocryphal  writings  and  decrees  of  Councils 
and  opinions  of  Fathers  on  a  platform  little,  if 
at  all,  lower  than  the  Bible  itself.  The  Greek 
Church  has  never  put  any  restraint  on  the  read- 
ing of  the  Bible  by  her  people.  On  the  con- 
trary, she  has  not  only  encouraged  its  circula- 
tion by  the  Bible  Society  of  this  country,  but 
has  established  a  similar  society  in  St.  Peters- 
burg. It  is  true  that  certain  Councils  and 
opinions  of  Fathers  of  the  Church  are  regarded 


THE  BIRTH-RATE  OF  PROGRESS.  19 

as  of  authority,  but  these  are  not  put  forward  so 
prominently  as  to  hinder  the  free  use  of  the 
Scriptures  by  any  one  who  desires  to  study 
for  himself.  As  for  the  Protestant  Churches, 
they  make  it  their  boast  that  theirs  is  "  the 
religion  of  the  book."  They  teach  that  every 
man  is  able  to  find  the  way  to  heaven  who  has 
the  Bible  in  his  mother  tongue,  and  studies  it 
earnestly  with  the  help  that  is  promised  to  all 
who  honestly  seek  it. 

The  other  characteristic  feature  of  these 
Churches  is  an  equally  obvious  and  admitted 
one,  viz.,  the  subjection  of  the  individual  to 
the  infallible  judgment  and  authority  of  the 
Church  or  of  its  supreme  head  on  the  one 
hand,  or  the  assertion  of  the  right  of  private 
judgment  on  the  other.  No  one  will  deny  that 
the  Church  of  Rome  claims  unquestioning 
obedience  to  the  head  of  the  Church  from  all 
her  adherents.  The  Greek  Church  claims  the 
submission  of  its  members,  but  there  is  not  the 
one  supreme  spiritual  head  to  assert  authority 
as  in  the  other.  Thei^  are  three  heads.  The 
greatest  of  these,  the  Czar  of  Russia,  has  too 
much  of  the  character  of  a  temporal  power  to 
be  a  spiritual  despot,  except  to  the  most  igno- 
rant of  his  own  subjects;  and  as  Austria  and 
Greece  became  rulers  over  a  body  of  Greek 
Christians,   they  also  have  set   up  Patriarchal 


20         A   CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

heads  in  their  own  kingdoms.  The  earthly  or 
lay  character  of  this  headship  renders  it  alto- 
gether different  from  the  more  logical  and 
consistent  headship  of  the  Church  of  Rome. 
Protestants,  from  their  principles  as  well  as 
from  their  divisions,  are  excluded  from  any 
headship  on  earth.  They  deny  the  right  of 
any  power  in  this  world  to  control  their  liberty 
or  to  interfere  with  their  personal  responsibility. 
Whatever  may  be  thought  of  these  principles, 
the  fact  cannot  be  denied  that  they  are  the 
principles  of  these  later  centuries,  during  which 
such  great  advances  have  been  made  in  the  pros- 
perity and  progress  of  the  Protestant  nations  of 
Europe. 

It  may  be  objected  that  there  is  not  one  State 
in  Europe  in  which  the  population  belongs 
wholly  either  to  the  Protestant,  Eoman  Catholic, 
or  Greek  Church  ;  and  even  where  one  Church 
is  largely  predominant,  there  are  many  of  the 
inhabitants  who  care  little  or  nothing  for  any 
religion,  and  still  less  for  the  Churches ;  and 
that  the  States  of  Europe  are  not  in  the  habit 
of  making  religion  a  question  of  the  basis  of 
their  foreign  or  domestic  policy.  To  these  and 
other  objections,  we  have  only  to  say,  that  in  order 
to  make  a  religion  a  power  influencing  popula- 
tion, it  is  not  necessary  that  it  be  universal. 
If  it  be  predominant  in  the  country,  it  exerts 


THE  BIRTH-RATE  OF  PROGRESS.  21 

its  power  quietly  and  secretly,  like  the  leaven 
hid  in  the  mass.  The  system  which  predo- 
minates in  the  minds  and  hearts  of  the  people 
will  impart  its  character  to  the  domestic,  social, 
and  political  life  of  the  nation.  Even  those 
who  neglect  or  profess  to  reject  its  authority 
are,  in  spite  of  themselves,  influenced,  if  not 
controlled  by  it.  But  it  is  a  notorious  fact  that 
where  a  religious  census  is  taken  the  number 
who  declare  themselves  of  no  religion  is  an 
inappreciable  fraction — not  exceeding  a  few 
thousands. 

France  is  the  only  apparent  exception.  In 
last  census  over  nine  millions  declined  to  say 
what  religion  they  professed,  but  this  does  not 
imply  that  they  professed  none.  It  is  one  thing 
for  a  man  to  decline  to  profess  adherence  to  a 
religious  sect,  and  quite  another  thing  to  declare 
that  he  renounces  all  religions. 


4.  Increase  of  population  in  Europe  under 
the  different  religions  in  recent  times. 

We  now  call  attention  to  a  table  giving  the 
increase  of  the  population  of  Europe  under 
groups,  according  to  the  predominant  religion 
professed  in  each. 


23 


A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 


Table  shovdng  the  numbers  belonging  to  the  Protestant,  Roman  Catholic, 
and  Greek  Churches  respectively,  according  to  the  most  recent  Census 
in  each  country  [lower  numbers  not  given,  lohere  miuute  accuracy 
was  doubtful. 


Countries. 

Protestant. 

Roman 

Catholic. 

Greek 
Church, 

Europe— 

Austria-Hungary 

3,950,000 

32,000,  oooi 

3,250,000 

France         .... 

700,000 

28, 000, 000  2 

600,080 

Italy 

100,000 

28,500,000 

Spain 

8,500 

i6,ooo,ooo3 

Portugal      .... 

600 

4,700,000 

Belgium      .... 

16,000 

5,750,000 

German  Empire . 

29,250,000 

16,800,000 

Great  Britain  and  Ireland  . 

30,500,000 

5,250,000 

Xetherlands 

2,500,000 

1,500,000 

Sweden  and  Norway  . 

6,500,000 

1,000 

Denmark     .... 

2,000,000 

3,000 

Russia  in  Europe 

3,250,000 

9,500,000 

64,500,000 

Turkey    in     Europe     and ) 
smaller  States          .         ) 

100,000 

750,000 

9,500,000 

Greece         .... 

1,000 

31,000 

1,800,000 

Switzerland 

Total  of  Europe     . 
Calculated  to  1886      . 
Ameeica— 

1,700,000 

1,150,000 

80,576,100 

149,935,000 

81,650,000 

85,000,000 

154,000,000 

83,000,000 

United  States     . 

42,000,000 

7,410,000 

... 

British  Colonies . 

5,280,000 

2,521,300 

... 

Mexico  and  South  Ameri-  ) 
can  States        .         .         j" 

Total  of  America  . 

Calculated  to  1886      . 

Asia  and  Africa,  &c.— 

500,000 

37,000,000 

... 

47,780,000 

46,931,300 

49,000,000 

48,000,000 

Russia  and  Turkey     . 

... 

4, 000, 000  4 

Missions      .... 
Grand  Total,  1886 . 

2,750,000 

3,250,000 

500,000 

137,050,000 

205,250,000 

87,500,000 

1  Includes  4,340,000  Greek  Catholics. 

2  7,684,906  signed  themselves  Non-professants  in  the  last  census. 
8  9,645  signed  themselves  Rationalists. 

*  Includes  Armenians,  &c. 


THE  BIRTH-RATE  OF  PROGRESS.  23 

In  this  table,  which  we  have  prepared  with 
much  care  from  the  most  authentic  source,  we 
exhibit  the  comparative  increase  of  the  three 
great  rehgions  of  Europe.  We  give  the  table 
in  detail,  that  if  there  be  any  error  it  may  be 
corrected  by  experts.  The  results  show  that 
the  number  of  adherents  of  the  Protestant, 
Roman  Catholic,  and  Greek  Churches  in  Europe, 
by  the  last  census  returns,  were  80,576,000  of 
the  Protestant,  149,935,000  of  the  Eoman 
Catholic,  and  81,650,000  of  the  Greek  Church. 
If  we  add  the  increase  from  the  last  census  to 
the  year  1886,  calculating  by  the  rates  of  in- 
crease as  given  by  Signer  Bodio,  the  results  will 
be  as  near  as  possible  in  round  numbers — 

Protestants    ......  85,000,000 

Koman  Catholics 154,000,000 

Greek  Church 83,000,000 

We  cannot  be  so  sure  of  the  exact  numbers 
before  the  census  period,  which  practically  coin- 
cides with  the  nineteenth  century;  but,  as  we 
have  shown  from  the  investigations  of  Lowndes 
and  Debrett,  Sharon  Turner,  M'Culloch,  and 
others,  we  cannot  be  far  wrong  in  placing  the 
population  of  Europe  at  150,000,000  in  1786.^ 

The  comparative  numbers  of  the  three  Churches 

1  We  have  taken  the  liberty  of  assuming  a  larger  number  than  any 
of  these  estimates,  because  we  have  a  reliable  test  which  they  had  not, 
and  could  not  apply. 


24         A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

at  that  time  were,  as  nearly  as  we  can  ascertain, 
;^y  millions  of  Protestants,  80  millions  of  Eoman 
Catholics,  and  probably  40  millions  of  the  Greek 
Church,  so  that  the  comparison  for  the  two 
periods  would  stand  thus — 

1786.  1886. 

Protestants        .        .         37,000,000  85,000,000 

Roman  Catholics       .         80,000,000  154,000,000 

Greek  Church  .         ,         40,000,000  83.000,000 

So  that  the  Protestants  increased  by  nearly  two 
and  a  half  times,  while  the  Eoman  Catholics 
only  increased  less  than  twice  their  former 
number,  and  the  Greeks  little  more  than  twice. 
But  if  we  take  into  account  the  hives  thrown 
off  during  that  time  by  the  prolific  Protestant 
countries,  their  increase  becomes  still  more 
striking.  Taking  the  United  States  and  the 
British  Colonies  into  account,  we  find  that  in 
these  new  countries  there  were  in  the  United 
States  and  British  Colonies — 


1786. 

1886. 

Protestants 

. 

.       2,700,000 

47,000,000 

Roman  Catholics 

. 

190,000 

9.930,000 

So  that  if  we  take  the  populations  of  Europe 
and  their  descendants,  we  find  the  three  Churches 
stand  thus,  at  the   beginning  and   end   of  the 

century — 

1786,  1886. 

Protestants  .  37.700,000  134,000,000  increase  nearly  4-fold. 
Roman  Catholics  80,190.000     163,000,000        „  „       2-fold. 

Greek  Church  .     40,000,000      83,000,000        „  „       2-fold. 


THE  BIRTH-RATE  OF  PROGRESS.  25 

That  is  to  say,  Protestants  have  increased  at 
the  rate  of  fully  three  and  a  half  times  in  a 
hundred  years,  while  Roman  Catholics  have  only 
doubled  their  numbers  in  that  time.  This  is  a 
far  more  important  question  than  the  absolute 
numbers.  The  party  which  is  increasing  most 
rapidly  must  win  in  the  long  run,  if  only  it 
keep  true  to  its  destined  course,  even  if  we 
take  into  account  the  acquisitions  made  by 
Popery  before  the  period  with  which  we  deal — 
accessions  to  the  Church  made  by  the  blood- 
stained hands  of  cruel  men — forced  conversions 
and  bloody  baptisms.  Mexico,  Brazil,  Peru, 
and  the  smaller  States  of  South  America  will 
add  to  the  number  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
about  ^y  millions  of  adherents,  such  as  they  are. 
No  allowance  can  be  made  for  increase  during 
the  hundred  years.  Any  increase  of  population 
which  has  taken  place  in  these  countries  has 
taken  place  in  recent  times,  during  the  years  of 
emancipation  from  the  dominion  of  the  foreign 
yoke  —  a  movement  which  has  shaken  the 
spiritual  power  of  Rome,  and  threatens  to  break 
off  her  yoke  in  future. 

Since  we  add  these  to  the  numbers  of  the 
Church  of  Rome,  we  may  add  to  the  other  side 
the  doubtful  Christians  of  Abyssinia  and  the 
many  weak  sects  of  Nestorians,  Copts,  &c., 
scattered   through   Asia   and   Africa,    probably 


26        A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

numbering  at  least  a  million  and  a  half.  These 
additions,  which  we  put  to  the  credit  of  the 
Greek  Church,  to  which  by  creed  and  customs 
they  are  most  akin,  will  make  the  three  Chris- 
tian sects  stand  thus — 

Protestants  of  all  denominations  .  .  137,000,000 
Koman  Catliolics  of  all  sects  .  .  .  205,000,000 
Greek  Churcli  with  many  diversities        .       89,000,000 


Total  of  professing  Cliristians     .     421,000,000 

It  will  be  seen  from  these  figures,  which  are 
more  favoumble  to  Popery  than  any  hitherto 
given,  that  the  Eoman  Church  has  now  lost  its 
boasted  supremacy  over  the  other  sects  of  Chris- 
tendom. The  Protestant  and  Greek  Churches 
together  number  226  millions,  as  against  the 
205  millions  of  Rome,  and  every  year  Popeiy  is 
losing  ground.  Her  population  is  unproductive 
and  unprogressive.  There  is  a  lack  of  enter- 
prise and  energy,  w^hile  those  of  the  Protestant 
and  Greek  Churches  are  multiplying  and  ad- 
vancing on  every  hand  and  taking  possession 
of  the  earth.  Emigration  is  the  feature  and  the 
forte  of  the  races  which  compose  their  member- 
ship ;  and  now  that  Europe  is  so  densely  peopled, 
the  emigrant  races  will  be  the  forces  of  the 
future.  Eome  knows  and  feels  this,  and  her 
grand  efforts  are  now  put  forth  to  corrupt  the 
Protestantism  of  Europe  and  America,  and  above 


THE  BIRTH-RATE  OF  PROGRESS.  27 

all  to  win  back  the  Saxon  race.  Herein  lies  our 
danger  and  our  weakness.  Our  strength  lies  in 
the  steadfastness  and  vitality  of  our  faith.  No 
increase  of  numbers  will  avail  if  our  people 
are  corrupted  and  our  strongholds  are  held  by 
traitors  or  by  a  timid  and  "feeble  folk." 

Conclusion. 

We  have  called  attention  to  this  amazing  in- 
crease in  a  hundred  years  of  the  Protestant 
population  of  the  world  by  the  natural  birth- 
rate not  as  a  matter  of  boasting,  but  of  stimulus 
and  encouragement,  specially  with  a  reference 
to  missionary  effort.  This  increase  is  the  result 
of  natural  law.  There  is  a  higher  law  binding 
the  conscience  of  the  intelligent  Christian  who 
knows  and  loves  the  Saviour  of  men.  What 
could  not  such  a  body  of  men  as  this  137  millions 
accomplish  if  only  one  in  ten  or  one  in  a  hun- 
dred w^ere  in  earnest  ?  The  120  poor  men  and 
women  in  the  upper  room  in  Jerusalem  began 
a  movement  which  revolutionised  the  Roman 
Empire  in  less  than  300  years.  Could  not  these 
137  millions  of  the  richest  and  most  powerful 
people  upon  earth  carry  the  Gospel  to  the  whole 
world  in  a  tithe  of  that  time  if  inspired  with 
the  same  zeaH 

We  are  fully  conscious  of  the  unsatisfactory 


28         A   CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

nature  of  the  Protestantism  of  the  present  time. 
But  we  do  not  despond,  far  less  despair  of  its 
future.  The  Protestantism  of  the  nineteenth 
century  is  of  a  higher  type  and  more  hopeful 
character  than  that  of  the  eighteenth.  The 
power  which  raised  a  living  Church  out  of  that 
cold,  hard,  dead  century  is  capable  of  reviving 
us  again  with  new  life  and  power  for  the  evan- 
gelisation of  the  world. 


Kofe  to  Page  1 1. 

Taken  by  itself,  it  does  seem  incredible  that  the  population  of 
Europe  should  have  increased  by  i8o  millions  in  the  hundred 
years  from  1786  to  1886,  -when  we  have  good  reason  to  believe 
that  for  the  1500  years  from  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era 
to  the  Reformation  it  had  not  made  any  perceptible  increase,  if 
it  made  any  at  all.  But  a  study  of  the  conditions  of  society  in 
the  two  periods  explains  the  cause.  The  breaking  up  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  with  the  usual  concomitants  of  a  disorganised 
state  of  society,  in  the  earlier  period,  and  the  internecine  wars, 
with  the  famines  and  pestilences  of  the  later  times,  were  enough 
to  keep  down  population.  The  Reformation,  with  its  attendant 
liberation  of  the  mind  from  darkness  and  bondage,  and  the 
higher  position  it  gave  to  the  restored  manhood  of  the  race, 
inspired  hopes  and  ambitions  which  led  to  struggles  after  a 
better  life  in  the  present  world  as  well  as  in  that  which  is  to 
come.  Progress  was  retarded  for  a  while  by  wars  and  their 
attendant  evils,  but  gradually  the  state  of  society  began  to  im- 
prove, and  the  conditions  of  increase  slowly  brightened,  and  the 
addition  of  30  or  50  millions  to  the  population  by  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century  is  most  probable.  The  sudden  breaking  out 
of  a  new  life  and  vigour  is  explained  by  the  changes  introduced 
at  the  eventful  period  in  the  history  of  Europe.     In  calculating 


THE  BIRTH-RA  TE  OF  PROGRESS.  29 

the  rate  of  increase  for  the  hundred  years,  it  seems  much  too 
liigh  ;  but  we  must  remember  that  if  -vve  take  the  rate  by  calcu- 
lating it  on  the  results  of  a  lengthened  period,  it  is  very  different 
from  that  for  a  short  term,  or  for  one  year.  The  increase  of  180 
millions  in  a  hundred  years  seems  to  give  a  rate  of  1.20  per 
annum.  In  reality  the  rate  is  much  less.  1.20  is  the  rate  j^er 
cent,  over  the  whole  period.  It  gives  what  corresponds  to  simple 
interest  or  increase,  while  the  rate  year  by  year  is  that  of  com- 
pound interest. 

"  It  has  been  estimated  that  when  the  Eomans  invaded  Britain 
the  population  of  England  did  not  exceed  70,000  or  80,000.  At 
the  period  of  the  Norman  Couquest  it  is  estimated  at  1,800,000. 
In  thirty-four  shires  there  were  said  to  have  been  in  towns  only 
about  17, 105  inhabitants.  The  Villains  were  computed  at  102,703  ; 
the  Bordars  at  74,823  ;  Cottars,  5947  ;  and  Thralls,  26,552. 

"  It  has  been  computed  from  Doomsday  Book  that  there  were 
at  the  Conquest  300,785  families  at  an  average  of  five  to  each, 
giving  a  population  of  1,504,925  ;  but  this  did  not  include 
Wales  or  the  four  northern  counties  of  Northumberland,  Cum- 
berland, Durham,  and  Lancaster.  If  these  be  included,  the 
population  of  England  was  at  that  time  probably  2,150,000." — 
History  of  the  British  Empire^  by  John  Macgregor,  M.P. 

"In  1337  a  poll-tax  of  4d.  was  imposed  upon  men  and  women 
alike.  This  yielded  a  revenue  implying  a  population  of  1,367,000 
persons,  but  did  not  include  Wales,  Chester,  and  Durham.  But 
a  census  made  for  taxation  is  always  too  small.  Mr.  Chalmers 
gives  the  population  of  England  and  Wales  for  that  period  at 
2,350,000." — From  History  of  Anglo-Saxons,  vol.  iii.  p.  258. 


Note  to  Page  22. 

Absolute  accuracy  in  the  numbers  of  the  populations  of  the 
different  countries,  however  desirable,  is  not  necessary  to  the 
accuracy  of  our  conclusions  regarding  the  increase  under  different 
systems  of  religion,  provided  we  have  the  same  rule  applied  to 
each  country  by  an  impartial  hand.  The  following,  taken  from 
the  "Political  Geography "  published  by  Loundes  and  Debrett 
of  London  in  the  year  1789  seems  fair  and  reliable.  The  estimate 
for  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  is  nearer  than  that  of  Mr.  Abbot. 


30 


A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 


and  if  we  allow  for  the  twelve  or  fifteen  rears  which  must  have 
elapsed  between  any  returns  of  births  and  deaths  which  could 
be  of  use  for  such  a  publication  in  1789  and  the  census  of  1801, 
the  12,000,000  which  is  set  down  for  Great  Britain  must  have 
been  very  nearly  accurate.  The  increase  from  18  ri  to  1821, 
according  to  the  two  first  censuses  which  can  be  relied  on,  was 
1,900,000.  If  the  increase  from  1785  to  1801  be  added  to 
12,000,000,  it  would  bring  the  estimate  to  within  half  a  million 
of  the  official  return.  From  calculations  of  a  similar  kind  in 
reference  to  some  of  the  other  countries,  while  they  do  not 
exactly  coincide  with  the  numbers  given  by  Dr.  Berthillon,  they 
are  wonderfully  near  to  have  been  drawn  from  independent 
sources.  The  following  is  the  best  table  we  have  been  able  to 
procure  out  of  the  many  we  have  consulted.  The  only  number 
we  venture  to  correct  in  our  use  of  this  table  is  the  population 
of  Russia,  which  is  certainly  too  low. 


Table  slioioing  Population  of  the  principal  States  of  Europe  ahout  the 
year  1786,  as  estimated  by  Lowndes  and  Dehrett  in  their  ^^  Political 
Geography,''^  published  in  London,  1789. 


Countries. 


Europe 

Great  Britain  and  Ireland 

England  and  Wales 

France 

Germany   . 

Austrian  Domi 

Prussia 

Holland     . 

Italy . 

Switzerland 

Spain 

Portugal    . 

Sweden 

Denmark  . 

Poland 

Russia  (European) 

Turkey  (European) 


Area  in 
Square  Miles. 


2,750,000 
107,724 

54,112 

157,924 

190,000 

180,500 

60,000 

10,000 

80,000 

14,190 
148,488 

32,000 
220,000 
180,500 
1 68, 800 
1,195,000 
181,400 


Inhabitants 

Population. 

to  Square 
Mile. 

140,000,000 

51 

12,000,000 

III 

8,100,000 

150 

24,800,000 

157 

25,000,000 

135 

19,500,000 

loS 

6,125,000 

104 

2,750,000 

275 

15,500,000 

180 

1,185,000 

130 

10,500,000 

70 

2,300,000 

72 

3,000,000 

14 

2,300,000 

13 

8,500,000 

53 

20,000,000 

17 

9,000,000 

50 

THE  BIRTH-RATE  OF  PROGRESS, 


31 


Table  I. — Shoioing  the  Increase  of  the  Population  of  Europe  during  the 
present  Century,  hy  Signor  Bodio. 


Country. 

iSoo. 

i860. 

1883. 

Italy     . 
France 

Great  Britain  and 
Ireland    . 

* 
(1801) 
1  (1801 

17,237,000 
27,349,000 

)  16, 302,000 

(1861) 
(1861) 

(1861) 

25,016,000 
37,368,000 

29,321,000 

29,010,000 
35,611,000 

England  and  "Wales 
Scotland 

(1801) 
(1801) 

8,892,000 
1,608,000 

(1861) 
(1861) 

20,066,000 
3,062,000 

26,770,000 
3,825,000 

Ireland 

(1801) 

5,216,000 

(1861) 

5,798,000 

5,015,000 

Germany 

Prussia 

Bavaria 

(1816) 
(1816) 
(1818) 

24,831,000 

13,706,000 

3,680,000 

(1861)   38,137,000 
(r86i)   22,748,000 
(1861)     4,657,000 

45,862,000 

27,972,000 

5,442,000 

Saxony 
"Wurtemburg 

(1815) 
(1816) 

1, 1 8  r,  000 
1,410,000 

(1861) 
(1861) 

2,225,000 
1,720,000 

3,082,000 
2,002,000 

Baden  . 
Alsace-Lorraine   . 

(1807) 

922,000 

(1861) 
(1861) 

1,372,000 
1,564,000 

1,609,000 

Austria  (Cisleithau) 

... 

18,884,000 

22,494,000 

Hungary 
Switzerland . 

... 

14,223,000 
2,507,000 

2,889,000 

Belgium 
Holland 

(1795) 

2,100,000 

(1859) 

4,731,000 
3,309,000 

5,720,000 
4,225,000 

Sweden 

(1801) 

2,347,000 

3,859,000 

4,603,000 

Norway 

(1801) 

883,000 

1,608,000 

1,916,000 

Denmark 

(1801) 

929,000 

1,608,000 

2,028,000 

Spain   . 
Portugal 

(1801) 

10,541,000 
2,931,000 

(1861) 

15,658,000 
3,693,000 

16,902,000 

... 

Greece 

... 

(1861) 

1,096,000 

Servia  . 

... 

(1859) 

1,100,000 

1,865,000 

European  Russia, 
without  Poland, 
Finland,  &c. 

! 

... 

(1867)   63,658,000 

... 

Finland 
Polish  Russia 
United   States   of 
America   . 

1 

834,000 
5,308,000 

(1867) 

1,746,000 
5,705,000 

31,443,000 

2,142,000 

*  Signor  Bodio's  table  dees  not  give  the  three  lower  figures.     "We  have 
replaced  them  in  ciphers.    . 


32 


A   CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS, 


Table  II. — Table  showing  the  Bate  of  Increase  of  Population  in  Europe, 
extending  over  two  different  Periods  in  the  present  Century,  by 
Siijnor  Bodio. 


Annual 

Annual 

Country. 

Period 

Average 

Period 

Average 

observed. 

Rate 

observed. 

Rate 

per  cent. 

per  cent. 

Italy        .... 

I 800-61 

.61 

1861-83 

•67 

France     .... 

1801-61 

.49 

1861-81 

•25 

Great  Britain  and  Ireland 

1801-61 

.98 

1861-84 

•93 

England  and  Wales 

i8oi-6i 

1-3 

1861-84 

1.32 

Scotland 

1801-61 

I.O 

1861-84 

1.0 

Ireland    .... 

1801-61 

.17 

1861-84 

-.88 

German  Empire 

1816-61 

.95 

1861-83 

.84 

Prussia   .... 

1816-61 

1-13 

1861-83 

•94 

Bavaria  .... 

1818-61 

.54 

1861-83 

•71 

Saxony    .... 

1815-61 

1-3 

1861-83 

1.4 

Thuringia 

1816-67 

.78 

1867-83 

.82 

"Wurtemburg  . 

1816-61 

•44 

1861-83 

.69 

Baden     .... 

1807-61 

.73 

1861-83 

.72 

Alsace-Lorraine 

1821-61 

.48 

1861-82 

.03 

Austria  (Cisletihau) 

1830-60 

.64 

1860-83 

.76 

Hungary 

1830-60 

.02 

1860-80 

•47 

Switzerland 

1837-60 

.58 

1860-83 

.62 

Belgium . 

1831-60 

.77 

1860-83 

.83 

Holland  . 

1795-1859 

•71 

1859-83 

1.0 

Sweden  . 

1800-60 

.83 

1860-83 

.76 

Norway  . 

1801-60 

1.0 

1860-83 

•76 

Denmark 

1801-60 

•93 

1860-83 

1.9 

Spain 

1800-60 

.66 

1860-83 

•33 

Portugal 

1801-61 

•38 

1861-78 

.70 

Greece    . 

1821-61 

1.2 

1861-82 

1.2 

Servia     . 

1834-59 

1-9 

1859-83 

1.4 

European  llussia, without 

j- 1851-67 

.83 

1867-79 

1.2 

Poland,  Finland,  &c.  . 

Finland  .... 

1800-60 

1.2 

«S6o-83 

.89 

Polish  Russia 

1823-67 

.98 

1867-79 

1.8 

United  States  of  America 

1800-60 

30 

1860-80 

2.3 

Massachusetts 

1800-60 

1-7 

1860-80 

1.8 

THE  BIRTH-RATE  OF  PROGRESS.  33 

The  striking  fact  broiiglit  out  in  the  following  taLle  is  that 
the  population  of  Europe  during  the  period  from  1865  to  1882-3 
increased  at  the  rate  of  0.85  per  cent,  per  annum,  according  to 
the  enumeration  returns,  and  at  the  rate  of  1.06  per  cent,  by  the 
natural  increase  or  excess  of  births  over  deaths.  At  this  rate  the 
population  of  Europe  will  double  itself,  if  the  conditions  remain 
the  same,  in  81  years.  Even  if  we  exclude  Eussia,  which  has 
area  enough  on  which  to  nourish  her  increasing  numbers,  the 
rate  of  0.67  per  annum  will  double  the  population  in  104  years. 
From  the  care  with  which  the  census  is  made  in  almost  all 
civilised  countries,  there  is  not  the  slightest  ground  for  question- 
ing  the  accuracy  of  recent  returns. 


34 


A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 


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THE  BIRTH-RATE  OF  PROGRESS. 


35 


1               1  1 

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(    36    ) 


CHAPTER  II. 

NATIONALITIES  OF  EUROPE. 

In  the  previous  chapter  we  have  shown  how 
Christianity  has  advanced  during  the  last  cen- 
tury by  the  natural  increase  of  the  families  of 
those  professing  the  different  creeds  classed 
under  the  heads  of  Protestant,  Roman  Catholic, 
and  Greek  Churches.  We  shall  now  consider 
the  same  subject  under  the  head  of  nationalities. 
This  will,  to  a  certain  extent,  necessitate  our 
traversing  a  portion  of  the  ground  we  have 
already  travelled  over,  but  with  a  different  ob- 
ject in  view,  and  presenting  the  subject  in  a 
different  aspect.  We  have  seen  how  the  dif- 
ferent religions  have  progressed  as  they  exist 
within  the  limits  of  the  different  nations  of 
Europe.  Now  we  shall  see  how  the  nations 
themselves  have  progressed  under  the  different 
forms  of  religion  which  the  people  profess  to 
believe,  confining  ourselves  to  the  three  great 
divisions  of  Christianity  in  Europe  as  the  only 
religious  forces  which  have  any  material  in- 
fluence on  the  destiny  of  nations. 


NATIONALITIES  OF  EUROPE.  yf 

But  we  may  be  told,  at  the  outset,  that  it  is 
too  late  in  the  day  to  talk  of  religion  as  a  force 
which  now  has  any  important  influence  on 
national  increase  or  progress.  Our  answer  is 
that,  so  far  as  regards  the  old  claims  of  religion 
to  dominate  political  or  public  actions,  these  are 
practically  gone,  and  we  do  not  regret  their  de- 
parture. Christianity  as  originally  founded  by 
Christ  was  not  meant  to  be  an  external  power 
ruling  over  the  public  affairs  of  the  nations  of 
the  earth.  "  My  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world  " 
was  His  maxim.  ''  The  kingdom  of  God  cometh 
not  with  observation."  "  The  kingdom  of  God 
is  ivitliin  you.''  The  great  power  of  Christianity 
lies  in  the  influence  which  it  exerts  on  the  hearts 
and  lives  of  individual  men,  and  in  the  propor- 
tion in  which  these  form  the  ruling  or  dominant 
force  in  a  nation.  To  that  extent  and  in  that 
way  does  Christianity  contract  and  direct  the 
destinies  of  nations  and  empires.  In  this  kind 
of  influence  Christianity  is  more  powerful  now 
than  when  either  Popes  or  Puritans  imposed 
their  decrees  and  dogmas  on  rulers  or  senates. 
In  those  days  it  was  a  force  acting  from  without ; 
now  Christianity  is  a  spiritual  life  moulding  our 
legislation  and  public  acts  by  a  power  from 
within. 

We  point,  as  an  evidence  of  this  secret  and 
powerful  working  of  the  Christian  life  in  modern 


38         A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

times,  especially  in  our  own  country,  to  the  spirit 
of  modern  legislation.  Not  to  laws  in  favour  of 
Christianity  in  so  many  words,  but  the  spirit  of 
these  laws  as  being  essentially  in  harmony  with 
the  spirit  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ.  The  treat- 
ment of  all  classes  equally  on  the  basis  of  a 
common  brotherhood,  free  from  the  distinctions 
of  caste  or  creed — the  fairness  and  justice  of 
these  laws,  and,  above  all,  the  spirit  of  compas- 
sion and  mercy  for  the  poor  and  the  weak  and 
suffering  amongst  men  and  even  the  lower 
animals.  Never  in  the  history  of  the  world 
have  the  laws  of  any  country  shown  anything 
approaching  to  the  spirit  of  true  Christianity  as 
exhibited  by  the  laws  of  Great  Britain  during 
this  present  century ;  and  it  cannot  be  denied 
that  Christian  men  were  the  movers  in  passing 
them,  from  the  days  of  Negro  emancipation, 
under  men  like  Wilberforce,  Clarkson,  and 
Buxton,  to  the  more  recent  laws  for  the  pro- 
tection of  women  and  children  carried  out  by 
the  late  Lord  Shaftesbury.  Even  when  those 
who  made  such  laws  were  not  strictly  religious 
men,  they  were  men  who,  like  all  statesmen, 
carry  out  what  they  know  to  be  the  feeling  of 
the  majority  of  the  influential  parties  in  the 
country.  If  the  Christian  spirit  were  not  the 
pervasive  spirit  of  the  population,  such  laws 
would  have  been  impossible,  or  never  thought 


NATIONALITIES  OF  EUROPE.  39 

of.  In  old  times,  when  Popish  or  Puritan 
parties  directed  legislation  from  without,  they 
were  too  apt  to  do  so  in  the  spirit  of  Moses 
rather  than  in  the  spirit  of  Christ.  The  New 
Testament  has  in  this  nineteenth  century  gained 
its  proper  place.  We  know  and  deplore  our  sad 
shortcomings,  but  dare  not  disown  what  God 
has  done  for  us  in  this  respect.^ 

The  revival  of  moral  and  religious  life  began 
with  the  Reformation  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
and  assumed  its  highest  form  in  the  nineteenth, 
in  so  far  as  it  affects  the  national  and  public  life 
of  the  people.  Its  influence  on  the  increase  of 
population  was  felt  from  the  first,  but  it  was 
only  in  the  nineteenth  century  that  it  assumed 
its  present  proportions.  It  not  only  gave  a  new 
sanction  and  sacredness  to  human  life,  but  im- 
parted new  hopes  for  the  future,  and  fresh  energy 
to  human  enterprise,  and  greater  stability  and 
rectitude  to  the  administration  of  human  laws. 
We  do  not  attribute  the  improvement  to  the 
religious  element  alone,  we  gladly  acknowledge 
the  wonderful  effects  produced  by  the  liberation 
of  the  Greek  and  Roman  classics  at  the  capture 
of  Constantinople  by  the  Turks.  The  scatter- 
ing of  the  seeds  of  literature  and  art,  which  had 
been  imprisoned  or  buried  in  the  effete  insti- 
tutions  of  a   corrupt   Christianity,   and   in  the 

1  See  Note  i  on  Minorltits,  p.  62. 


40         A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

lethargic  minds  of  indolent  Asiatics,  and  sow- 
ing them  in  the  more  productive  soil  of  the 
practical  and  energetic  European  intellect, 
brought  forth  a  harvest  rich  in  blessing  to  the 
world.  But  it  would  be  a  great  mistake  to  sup- 
pose that  it  was  the  literature  and  arts  of  Eome 
and  Greece  that  regenerated  Europe.  Greece 
and  Eome  had  themselves  decayed  and  perished 
when  their  art  and  literature  were  in  their 
highest  glory,  and  they  had  perished  with  them 
in  their  hands.  The  dead  languages  and  models 
of  art  could  never  impart  a  new  life  to  dead 
nations  ;  we  see  that  when  instinct  with  life  they 
could  not  preserve  the  life  of  the  nations  which 
had  given  them  birth.  No,  it  was  the  Bible 
which  was  the  regenerator  of  Europe.  It  libe- 
rated the  mind  and  awakened  the  conscience, 
and  by  the  grace  of  God  and  the  afflatus  of 
that  Divine  Spirit  which  breathed  upon  man  at 
his  creation,  inspired  new  life  into  the  nations 
of  Europe.  It  is  as  unphilosophic  as  it  is  vain  to 
expect  rivers  to  rise  higher  than  their  source  or 
an  effect  to  be  greater  than  its  cause.  A  dead 
literature,  even  the  dead  letter  of  the  Bible, 
could  not  raise  the  dead  barbarism  of  Europe  in 
the  sixteenth  century.  It  was  a  power  external 
and  from  above  that  quickened  the  stagnant 
intellect  of  Europe,  and  gave  it  a  direction 
favourable  to  the  development  of  the  race.     A 


NATIONALITIES  OF  EUROPE.  41 

revived  Christianity  transmuted  the  barren  spe- 
culations of  Greece  and  Eome  into  a  fruitful 
philosophy,  and  the  arts  of  the  ancients  into  the 
applied  sciences  of  modern  times. 

While  the  forces  by  which  Christianity  has 
been  originated,  sustained,  and  by  which  it  will 
eventually  prevail,  are  divine,  the  conditions 
under  which  it  has  been  propagated  are  natural 
and  human.  The  recognition  of  this  truth  is 
necessary  to  a  right  understanding  of  the  pro- 
gress of  the  Christian  religion,  and  to  a  confi- 
dent hope  in  its  final  triumph.  Without  it  we 
cannot  explain  its  history  or  understand  the 
vicissitudes  by  which  its  history  has  been  char- 
acterised. The  human  side  accounts  for  the 
constant  tendency  to  degeneracy  and  decay ;  the 
divine  accounts  for  the  ever  recurring  revivals 
by  which  Christianity  has  advanced,  extended 
her  sphere,  improved  her  form,  and  risen  to  a 
higher  life. 

The  three  highest  departments  of  science, — 
law,  medicine,  and  theology, — are  necessitated 
by  and  based  on  the  fact  of  a  disorganisation 
of  the  human  constitution.  Legislation  deals 
with  our  tendency  to  violate  the  interests  of 
society ;  medicine  with  the  tendency  to  disease  ; 
and  religion  with  the  tendency  to  violate  the 
laws  of  God. 

It  was  the  emancipation  of  the  mind  from  the 


42         A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

worst  of  all  bondage,  the  necessity  of  believing 
incredible  dogma  and  the  subjection  of  human 
reason  to  the  absolute  authority  of  fallible  men, 
which  set  the  race  free  and  gave  to  the  liberated 
manhood  of  Europe  a  spirit  of  independence 
and  a  consciousness  of  manhood  new  and  in- 
vigorating. The  liberation  of  the  conscience 
from  the  tyranny  of  a  priesthood  which  thrust 
itself  between  a  man  and  his  God  imparted  a 
new  dignity  to  humanity,  and  the  free  Gospel 
inspired  brighter  hopes  for  this  world  by  a  reflec- 
tion from  the  glories  revealed  in  the  next. 

That  religion  has  been  an  important  factor 
in  the  world's  history  no  one  will  deny.  That 
different  systems  of  religion  have  exerted  great 
influences,  for  good  or  evil,  on  the  progress  of 
society,  will  be  questioned  by  few,  if  any;  but 
the  nature  of  that  influence  on  the  increase  of 
population  has  not,  so  far  as  we  are  aware,  been 
made  the  subject  of  systematic  study.  The 
question  is  interesting  and  important,  not  only 
as  bearing  on  religion  and  population,  but  as 
affecting  political,  social,  and  moral  questions 
intimately  connected  with  the  welfare  of  society. 

The  change  in  the  rate  of  increase  of  popula- 
tion in  Europe  during  the  last  hundred  years 
has  been  demonstrated  in  the  previous  chapter, 
and  needs  no  further  proof  The  completeness 
of  modern  statistics  and  the  care,  we  may  say 


NATIONALITIES  OF  EUROPE.  43 

pride,  of  civilised  nations  makes  any  material 
error  practically  impossible.  We  have  left  the 
dim  and  uncertain  twilight  for  the  clear  light  of 
noon-day. 

The  following  facts  may  be  stated  as  certain. 
First,  that  Europe  has  more  than  doubled  its 
population  wdthin  the  last  hundred  years,  and 
has  for  the  last  thirty  years  been  increasing  at  a 
rate  which  will,  if  continued,  double  it  in  little 
more  than  eighty  years.  (See  Tables  L,  IL,  and 
III.)  Second,  that  the  Protestant  population 
has  increased  much  more  rapidly  than  the 
Eoman  Catholic,  and  that  belonu'inoj  to  the 
Greek  Church  more  rapidly  than  the  Catholic 
and  only  a  little  less  than  the  Protestant.  (See 
Table  IV.)  The  different  nationalities  vary 
greatly.  Ireland  has  decreased  since  the  potato 
famine;  France  is  almost  stationary;  England 
and  Wales  increase  most  rapidly  of  all  strictly 
European  States,  and  have  doubled  the  popula- 
tion in  less  than  sixty  years ;  Avhile  Ilussia  in 
Europe  has  increased  at  the  rate  which  will 
double  it  in  forty-six  years. 

In  the  following  table  we  do  not  pretend  to 
absolute  accuracy  in  the  earlier  dates,  but  it  is 
substantially  accurate  as  an  estimate  carefully 
compiled  from  the  most  reliable  and  trustworthy 
sources  of  information,  for  some  of  which  we 
refer  inquirers  to  the  Appendix.     Ireland  is  left 


•  1 


44         A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

out  in  all   these   estimates,  owing   to  the  im- 
possibility of  getting  reliable  data. 

Table  slwwing  the  Different  Periods  in  icliicli  tlie  PopidaUon 
of  Britain  has  prohaUy  doubled  during  Christian  era. 

B.C.  55  about  1,000,000. 

A.D.  1066  about  2,000,000  ;  period  of  doubling  over  iioo  years. 

„  1500     „      4,000,000            „              „            „      4CO    „ 

„  1700     ,,      8,cco,ooo            „              „            ,,      200    5, 

„  1 83 1      „    16,000,000            „              „            ,,131     V 

„  1886     „    32,000,000            „              „            „        56    „ 

At  the  rate  of  increase  from  1871  to   1881  it  would  double  in 
51  years. 

^Ye  take  France  as  another  illustration  of  the 
increase  of  population  in  Europe  during  the  cen- 
tury. Before  giving  an  estimate  for  the  whole, 
and  that  there  may  be  no  suspicion  of  our  being 
influenced  by  any  preconceived  opinions,  we  take 
the  figures  drawn  up  by  an  independent  autho- 
rity of  acknowledged  weight  when  dealing 
with  another  subject.  His  picture  of  the  slow 
increase  of  the  population  of  France  is  most 
pathetic  and  instructive. 

The  following  figures  and  remarks  on  their 
significance  are  prepared  by  one  in  no  way 
tempted  by  religious  theories  to  exaggerate  on 
this  subject.  They  are  from  the  pen  of  Dr.  J. 
Bertillon  Jils,  and  show  how  the  destiny  of 
nations  hangs  on  the  rate  of  its  natural  increase. 
In  his  **  Statistique  Humaine  de  la  France  "  he 


NATIONALITIES  OF  EUROPE. 


45 


calls  attention  to  "  the  fact  that  France  is  losing 
her  position  as  a  power  from  her  lack  of  popula- 
tion." He  says:  "In  1700  there  were  only 
three  great  nations  in  Europe  : — 

Trance  with  a  population  of  .     19,600,000 

England         „         ,,         „  .       8,000,000 

German  Empire     „         „  19  or  20,000,000 

Including  Austria        „  12  or  13,000,000 

„             Prussia    „  2,coo,ooo 

Altogether  about  50  millions.  France  was  then 
40  per  cent.,  the  greatest  power  from  her  large, 
compact,  and  homogeneous  population. 

In  1 7  89 

France  had  a  population  of         ,  .  .  26,000,000 

England  „             „             „           .  .  .  12,000,000 

Russia      „             „             „           .  .  .  25,000,000 

German  Empire  „             „           .  .  .  28,000,000 
States  composing  the  Empire — 

Austria  with  a  population  of  .  .  18,000,000 

Prussia     „               „             „  ,  .  5,000,000 

In  all  90  millions.     France  does  not  figure  for  more  than 
30  per  cent. 


In  1815 


France  had  a  population  of 
England    „  „  „ 

Austria      „  „  ,, 

Prussia      „  „  „ 

Russia 


29,500,000 
19,000,000 
30,000,000 
10,000,000 
45,000,000 


In  all  139  millions,  in  which  France  does  not  figure  for  more 
than  20  per  cent. 


46         A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 


In  iS8o 


France  had  a  population  of 
England  ,,  ,, 

Austria    „  „  „ 

German  Empire   .,  „ 

Russian  Empire    „  ., 

Italy        „  „  „ 


37,000,000 
34.800,000 
37,000,000 
45,000.000 
84,500,000 
28,600,000 


In  all  270  millions  of  inhabitant.^.     France  does  not  figure  for 
more  than  13  per  cent." 

These  figures,  as  grouped  by  Dr.  Bertillon, 
are  more  pathetic  than  any  threnody — the  de- 
sponding lament  of  a  patriot.  In  the  two  last, 
for  the  first  time,  we  have  the  appearance  of 
the  representative  of  the  Greek  Church  on 
the  European  arena — a  full  blown  power  on 
terms  of  equality  with  the  best,  having  45 
millions  in  1815,  and  nearly  twice  that  number 
in  1880. 

I.  Increase  under  the  Roman  Catholic  and 
Protestant  religions  comj^ared. 

Leaving  out  of  account  at  present  the  Greek 
Church,  there  are  two  pairs  of  powers  which 
may  be  taken  as  the  representatives  of  the  two 
dominant  religions  of  Europe  —  the  Eoman 
Catholic  and  Protestant  Churches.  France 
and  Austria  are  the  great  Catholic  powers — 
*'  defenders  of  the  faith ; "  and  England  and 
Germany  the  acknowledged  champions  of  Pro- 
testantism.    It  was   by  the   rapid   increase  of 


NATIONALITIES  OF  EUROPE. 


47 


the  population  of  Prussia,  and  the  corresponding 
increase  of  the  Protestant  element  in  the  minor 
States,  that  she  was  able  to  snatch  the  sceptre 
of  empire  from  the  hands  of  Austria,  and  to 
claim  the  imperial  place  in  Germany.  The 
following  arrangement  will  bring  this  out,  by 
only  changing  the  grouping  of  Dr.  Bertillon's 
figures,  thus : — 

1700. 


Roman  Catholic  Powers, 

Protestant  Powers. 

France 

, 

19,000,000 

Great  Britain 

8,000,000 

Austria 

12,000,000' 

Prussia 

2,000,000 

31,000,000 

10,000,000 

1789. 

France 

, 

26,000.000  ]  Great  Britain     . 

12,000,000 

Austria 

* 

i8,oco,coo 

Prussia 

5.000,000 

44,000,000 

17,000,000 

1815. 

France 

, 

29,000,000 

Great  Britain    . 

19,000,000 

Austria 

• 

30,000,000 

Prussia 

10,000,000 

59,000,000 

29,000,000 

18S0. 

France 

. 

37,000,000 

Great  Britain  1  ' 

34,800,000 

Austria 

■ 

37,000,000 

German  Empire 

45,000,000 

74,000,000 

79,800,000 

^  If  we  only  add  the  16  millions  of  Prnssia  to  the  34  of  Britain,  we 
have  50  millions,  or  two-thirds  of  the  other  powers  which  a  century 
and  a  half  before  were  tlwce  times  larger  than  they  were. 


48         A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

We  make  no  remarks  on  these  figures  at 
present,  except  to  say  that  in  judging  of  the 
causes  of  increase  of  population  we  must  not 
expect  to  explain  any  case  by  any  one  cause 
or  even  one  uniform  set  of  causes.  Each  case 
must  be  investigated  by  itself  There  are  cer- 
tain general  laws  always  at  work  which  we  must 
ever  keep  in  mind  when  seeking  for  some  more 
recondite  cause  which  modifies  or  controverts 
these  laws. 

To  show  the  possibilities  of  increase  in  a 
population,  we  give  the  returns  for  the  United 
States  of  America  for  a  little  more  than  a  cen- 
tury. A  good  deal  of  this  increase  is  from 
immigration,  but  that  forms  a  small  proportion 
of  the  whole.  The  total  number  of  immigrants 
to  the  States  prior  to  1820,  when  returns  were 
first  made,  is  said  to  have  been  only  a  quarter 
of  a  million,  and  from  1820  to  1830  they  were 
known  to  have  been  only  144,000;  and  from 
1 840,  when  immigration  began  to  flow  in  rapidly, 
to  1880,  the  total  number  of  immigrants  of  all 
nationalities  was  little  more  than  9,000,000. 
The  rate  of  increase  by  the  birth-rate  was  from 
1860-70,  32J  per  cent,  on  the  ten  years,  or 
about  3.2  per  annum ;  and  from  1870-80,  it 
was  31^,  or  3.1  per  annum,  at  which  the  popu- 
lation will  double  itself  in  less  than  twenty-four 
years  without  the  aid  of  immigration  ;  and  the 


NATIONALITIES  OF  EUROPE.  49 

Black  population,  to  which  there  is  no  addition 
from  without,  is  increasing  at  even  a  more  rapid 
rate.  The  following  are  the  results  from  1776 
to  1886:— 

Increase  of  the  Population  of  U.S.A. 


In  1776  the 

population  was 

. 

2,640,000 

„  1800 

. 

5o09>427 

„  1820 

. 

9,633,822 

„  1850 

. 

23,191,876 

„  1880 

. 

50,152,866 

„  1886 

„ 

[estimate) 

57,5oO;O0o 

An  increase  of  twenty  fold  in  little  more  than  a 
hundred  years. 

2.  Increase  of  Poj^ulation  in  Europe  under  the 
three  religious  systems  during  the  hundred 
years. 

It  is  impossible  to  compare  with  absolute 
accuracy  the  different  States  of  Europe  at  the 
interval  of  a  hundred  years  in  respect  to  the 
three  dominant  religions.  Owing  to  the  change 
of  the  area  of  the  populations  they  are  incom- 
mensurable, but  for  practical  purposes  they  may 
be  so  grouped  as  to  make  a  fair  comparison  of 
the  two  parties. 

At  the  treaty  of  Westphalia,  Germany  was 
divided  into  circles  according  to  the  dominant 
religion  in  each  State.     Austria,  Bavaria,  and 

D 


so 


A   CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 


Burgundy  were  classed  as  Catholic,  Saxony 
alone  was  designated  Protestant,  and  all  the 
rest  were  mixed.  But  up  to  the  period  of  the 
French  Eevolution,  Austria,  from  the  great  pre- 
ponderance of  its  population,  and  its  position 
as  the  central  and  imperial  authority,  practically 
made  the  German  Empire  a  Catholic  power; 
but  if  we  subtract  Prussia,  as  well  as  Saxony,  as 
Protestant  powers,  the  two  parties  may  be  fairly 
represented  thus  in  1786  : — 


Eoman  Catholic  Powers. 

Protestant  Powers. 

German  Empire,  including 

Great  Britain  and 

Austria 

.     31,000,000 

Ireland     .         .     14,000,000 

France 

.     25,000,000 

Prussia          .         .       6,000,000 

Italy     . 

.     15,500,000 

Saxony          .         .       1,600,000 

Spain    . 

.     10,500,000 

Holland         .        .       2,700,000 

Portugal 

2,300,000 

Sweden  and  Norway  6,000,000 

Poland 

8,500,000 



Denmark      .         .       2,300,000 

92,800,000 


32,500,000 


The  Greek  Church  at  that  time  was  only 
represented  by  the  presence  of  Russia  in  Europe, 
which  did  not  then  number  much  more  than 
twenty-five  millions,  the  other  Greek  States, 
with  insignificant  exceptions,  being  under  the 
Turks  and  the  religion  of  Islam. 

The  change  at  the  present  time  is  great,  and 
is  represented  in  detail  in  Table  I.  as  accurately 
as  can  be  gathered  from  the  most  recent  census 
in  each  country.  AVe  have  preferred  to  take  the 
latter  census  as  far  back  as  1880  or  1881,  rather 


NATIONALITIES  OF  EUROPE. 


than  trust  to  an  estimate  for  a  more  recent 
one.  The  percentages  for  the  aggregates  of 
the  different  groups  are  not  absolutely  accurate, 
but  they  are  sufficiently  near,  and  so  far  as  we 
compare  one  set  with  another  they  are  practi- 
cally accurate,  and  are  as  follows  :-. — 

Estimate  of  the  Population  of  Europe  for  1886  under  the  three  Religious 
Groups,  with  the  Rate  of  Increase  and  Probable  Period  of  Doubling, 


Religions  in  Groups. 

Population  in 

1886. 

Enumeration 
Rate  of 
Increase. 

Probable  Period 
of  Doubling. 

Roman  Catholic 

Protestant  . 

Greek  States— chiefly  ) 
Russian  .         .           j 

Total     . 

134,600,000 
98,600,000 

99,300,000 

Per  cent. 
•50 

1. 14 
1-33 

Years. 
138 

60 

52 

332,500,000 

.99 

70 

Turkey  and  Switzerland  are  not  included  in 
the  above,  which  accounts  for  the  diflferences  in 
the  figures  for  the  Greek  Church  and  aggregates 
of  population.    For  details,  see  Table  III.,  p.  34. 

The  following  comparison  of  the  three  groups 
of  States,  under  their  respective  religious  sys- 
tems, for  the  entire  hundred  years,  has  not  the 
same  interest  as  respects  the  natural  increases 
of  population,  owing  to  the  changes  which  have 
taken  place  in  the  territorial  and  political  rela- 
tions of  these  powers.     But  it  has  its  value  as 


S2 


A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 


indicating  the  character  of  the  forces  which  are 
now  at  work,  and  it  shows  how  these  forces 
have  developed  themselves  during  the  period. 
The  rate  of  increase  is  not  of  much  value,  as  it 
is  no  indication  of  the  movements  which  are 
now  taking  place,  or  which  are  likely  to  affect 
the  future  ;  we  therefore  give  only  the  numbers. 
The  period  of  doubling  would  be  of  no  value  in 
this  case,  as  the  conditions  cannot  be  the  same 
in  the  future  as  they  have  been  in  the  earlier 
period. 

Table  showing  the  Increase  of  Population  in  Europe  under  the  three 
groups  of  Rdigious  Systems  during  the  hundred  years,  in  millions 
and  tenths  of  millions  (00,000  omitted). 


Religious  Systems  as  represented 
by  Groups  of  States. 

Populatiou 
in  1786. 

Population 
in  1886.1 

Increase  in 
loo  years. 

Roman  Catholic  States  . 

92,8 

132,5 

39,7 

Protestant  States   . 

32,5 

96,5 

64,0 

Greek  States  .... 

25,0 

99iO 

74,0 

3.  Prospects  of  Population  in  Europe. 

The  probable  prospect  of  the  population  of 
Europe  doubling  in  seventy  years  is  far  from 
being  a  comforting  one,  but  the  more  closely  we 
examine  the  subject,  and  the  nearer  we  make 
our  calculations  to  the  present  time,  and  under 

^  The  population  for  1S86  is  found  by  taking  the  same  rate  as  that 
between  the  two  last  censuses. 


NATIONALITIES  OF  EUROPE.  53 

the  conditions  which  seem  to  be  not  only  the 
present,  but  probably  for  some  time  the  perma 
nent  conditions,  the  greater  are  the  reasons  for 
believing  that  the  rate  is  rather  on  the  increase. 
There  is  every  prospect  of  the  increase  of  the 
next  decade  giving  a  rate  of  i  per  cent,  per 
annum  instead  of  .99,  and  the  period  of  doubling 
to  be  nearer  69  than  70  years.  The  only  natural 
check  to  such  an  increase,  besides  war  and  pes- 
tilence, is  poverty,  which  means  misery  and 
decay,  or  emigration,  which  would  bring  wealth, 
happiness,  and  progress.  Other  artificial  expe- 
dients we  shall  not  at  present  even  name. 

To  one  circumstance  we  must  call  attention, 
that  is  the  effect  of  emigration  on  the  three 
groups  of  States  on  which  their  religious  systems 
have  had  an  important  bearing,  and  in  that  way 
promoted  the  increase  of  population.  The  Greek 
powers  have  confined  their  migrations  almost 
entirely  within  their  own  wide  territories,  as  in 
the  case  of  Eussia,  or  to  temporary  residence 
within  a  limited  distance  of  their  own  homes, 
chiefly  on  the  Mediterranean  littoral.  The 
Eoman  Catholics  have  failed  as  emigrants. 
Latin  races  do  not  succeed  as  colonists.  Spain 
and  Portugal  have  lost  almost  all  their  con- 
quests in  the  West.  By  intermarrying  with 
the  native  races  of  America  they  have  obeyed 
the  inevitable  law  which  merges  the  conquering 


54         A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

in  the  conquered  race.  They  may  have  to  some 
extent  improved  the  peoples  of  these  States, 
and  they  have  certainly  established  the  Eoman 
Catholic  Church  in  these  countries. 

The  Protestant  States,  on  the  other  hand, 
while  lessening  their  rate  of  increase  in  Europe 
by  emigration,  have  greatly  extended  both  their 
numbers  and  influence.  The  Saxons  and  the 
cognate  Taces  of  Scandinavia  and  Britain  have 
been  the  great  emigrating  forces  of  the  century, 
and  have  changed  the  face  of  the  world  by  this 
movement  of  the  race.  Leaving  out  of  account, 
in  the  meantime,  those  who  have  gone  to  the 
United  States,  though  they  are  not  really  lost 
to  us,  for  *'that  is  not  lost  which  a  friend  gets," 
the  emigration  from  Great  Britain  to  her  own 
colonial  possessions  has  resulted  in  an  addition 
of  more  than  6,000,000  to  the  number  of  her 
own  children  in  different  parts  of  the  Empire. 
If  we  add  these  to  the  home  population,  it 
brings  the  numbers  up  to  44,000,000,  or  in- 
cluding the  other  nationalities  in  the  colonies, 
now  practically  one  with  ourselves,  we  may 
reckon  a  British  population  of  48,000,000, 
equal  to  the  German  Empire ;  and  if  we  in- 
clude the  population  of  the  United  States,  three- 
fourths,  if  not  four-fifths  of  whom  are  of  British 
origin,  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  will  mount  up  to 
102,000,000 — a  greater  number  than  the  inhabi- 


NATIONALITIES  OF  EUROPE.  55 

tants  of  the  whole  Empire  of  Russia  in  Europe 
and  Asia. 

The  natural  increase  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race 
has  been  greater  than  even  that  of  the  Slav, 
with  all  the  disadvantage  of  limited  area  at 
home,  and  the  necessity  of  migrating  to  distant 
lands,  which  retards  increase  for  years,  w^hile 
the  male  population  predominates  over  the 
female,  as  in  all  new  colonies. 

No  country  on  the  continent  has  boundaries 
so  well  defined  by  nature  and  so  easily  defended 
as  those  which  encircle  the  British  Isles.  The 
"  streak  of  blue  "  which  separates  from  friends 
and  foes  alike  has  stood  in  the  way  of  either 
expansion  or  contraction  of  area.  The  map  of 
Europe  has  been  so  often  cut  up  and  carved 
into  different  forms,  and  painted  in  so  many 
different  colours,  that  it  would  be  a  difficult 
if  not  an  impossible  task  to  give  the  rate  of 
increase  of  any  one  nation  for  a  lengthened 
period.  We  may  give,  however,  that  of  France 
for  the  last  two  centuries  approximately. 

The  data  for  the  calculations  for  the  rate  of 
increase  in  the  early  part  of  the  century  are 
necessarily  very  imperfect.  No  one  can  pre- 
tend to  certainty.  As  an  illustration  of  the 
uncertainty  of  estimates,  the  population  of  Great 
Britain  was  generally  estimated  at  the  end  of 
last  century  at  8,000,000.     Mr.  B.  Abbot,  who 


56         A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

introduced  the  first  Act  of  Parliament  for  a 
general  census  of  the  population,  said  on  the 
19th  of  February  1800,  on  introducing  the 
measure,  that  he  estimated  the  inhabitants  of 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland  at  1 1 ,000,000.  The 
result  showed,  as  nearly  as  the  rough  methods  em- 
ployed would  allow,  that  it  was  over  15,000,000, 
and  the  returns  of  succeeding  years  have  proved 
that  this  was  not  far  from  the  truth. 


4.  liate  of  increase  in  latest  returns  of  the 
hundred  years. 

Having  shown  in  the  note  at  the  end  of 
Chapter  I.  the  rate  of  increase  in  Europe  during 
the  last  fifteen  or  twenty  years,  by  the  census 
returns  at  an  interval  of  about  fifteen  years 
(see  Table  III.  Chap.  I.),  the  nearest  acces- 
sible to  our  own  times,  and  illustrated  the 
progress  during  a  hundred  years  in  the  case 
of  a  few  of  the  great  European  States,  we  may 
now  make  a  comparison  of  the  latest  returns 
for  all  the  principal  countries.  They  are 
necessarily  imperfect,  but  we  are  now  in  a 
position  to  correct  any  very  material  error  by 
the  known  rate  of  increase  in  recent  times, 
making  due  allowance  for  altered  circumstances 
in  different  countries. 


NATIONALITIES  OF  EUROPE. 


57 


ci 

1 

00  H  to  fO  ro  Lo 
CO   ^  0^  CO  w   t^ 

CO 
CO 

00  to  0  ^  to  M 

tO\0    to  lOnO    Cv 

% 

00 

CD  -t-  t^  M  vO    0 

d  d  d  d  d  d 

d 

onmd  t^  01  vo  r^ 

M    0    CO  01    0    On 

„•     „•     H     M     M     d 

-h 

c^ 

is! 

t^  tx  CO  O'O    CJ 

ro  -i-  IT)  CO  01  M 

CO  10  OMN    Tf  d 

0 

to 

to 

KvO   to^O    0    0 
t>.\0    H    lOtOOO 

d  d  toco  00  to 

rt     H    M 

d 

«j 

oi 

ON  M    CO  •+  CN  w 

^H 

On  0    M    tNOO  \0 

CI 

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>6 

Oslo  0  ts  0  « 

H  \0  VO    ON  C^  CO 
0)    ON  10  CO  M    10 

i-T  h"  cT 

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to 

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vo" 

r+O     COCO    0   CO 
t^  ONVO  vO    to  0 

H     COIOIOM     H 

tF  CO 

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to 

00' 

«i< 

ill 

H    ON  1-t  00     0    •^ 

CO  CO  OJ    M 

CO 

to 

CO 

Tf  H     0  to  CO  ON 

C?  M    N  VO    ON  0\ 

^tO^^HH 

0 

CO 
On 

eo 

Date  of 
Census 
nearest 
to  i88o. 

w  0  •^-  -+-00  -t                     0  >-«  -1-  0  0  0 
CO  CO  00  CO   c^co                      CO  00  00  00  00  CO 

COOOCOODOOCO                                  OOOOCOOOCOCO 
MHHHHH                                       HMMMMM 

« 

Is  ° 

CJ    -f-  w    *-"    0    C^ 

0      0      0     LO    CN   10 

M^  CTjCO^  10  On  Cl^ 

\d^  uSo'^vo'^  CO  to 

CO  CO  CI    M 

1 

c^ 

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h"  m"  CO  -T  m"  m" 
^  CO 

to 

t-i 

Date  of 
Census 
nearest 
to  1870. 

MOnmOhcO                             WIHCOCOCJ'^ 

00  00  CO  CO  oo  CO                      CO  co  co  co  co  co 

!  Iloman  Catholic— 

France     .... 

Austria-Hungary    . 

Italy        .... 

Spain       .... 

Portugal 

Uelgium  .... 

Total  Kom,  Cath.  States 

Protestant— 
Germany 

Ot.  Britain  and  Ireland  . 
Netherlands    . 
Sweden   .... 
Norway  .... 
Denmark 

Total  Protestant  States  . 

a>  ji 


'rf. 

'^ ' 

tr  0 

s 

a 

0 

> 

a 

to 

'.) 

0 

0) 

;:< 

to 

CJ 

O)   o 


fXH 


58 


A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 


0> 

Period 

of 

doubling. 

0     ON   t^    0 

10 

»o  t^ 
0    ID 

0 

00 

sil 

a  tj  a 

^1 

w    0    000           CO 
LO  0     CO  CO           CO 

H     M     d     M             H 

6  6 

8^ 

6 

t^ 

•5  is 

2|| 

CO\d    (N    LO 

>o 

CTv 

vd  4 

CO 

ON 

06 

«o 

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Onvo  vO    m 

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00 
0" 

l>,OD 

H     CO 

q 

nil 

vq  CO  0^0^ 

CO  uS  CO  h" 
00 

CO 
ON 

0    00" 

0" 

CO 

CO 

CO 

Date  of 
Census 
nearest 
to  i88o. 

CO   00   00   00                          CO  CO 

04 

1^. 

CO  coco   t^ 
t-^  r^  0  Lo 
u^  0  CO  '^ 
CO  Lo  cT  hT 

ON 

cT 
00 

o\  0 

t 

i-i 

Date  of 
Census 
nearest 
to  1870. 

0  0  -t  0               00 
1^  t^  t^  tN.                t^  r>. 
CO  CO  CO  00                 00  CO 

Countries. 

CrccA-  Church— 
Russia  1  .... 
Eoumania 
Minor  States  . 
Greece     .... 

Total  Greek  States 

Switzerland  3  . 
Turkey  in  Europe  •* 

Total  Population  of  Europe 
about  1881 

sO 


-y 

(A 

ft 

S 

.2 

Tl 

0 

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"^ 

5 

3 
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rf 

f) 

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a^=H.3 


3    »;  -2    3 


Hm, 


NATIONALITIES  OF  EUROPE.  59 

This  table  we  have  prepared  with  much 
labour  and  care  from  the  most  reliable  sources. 
The  most  recent  returns  have  been  taken  to 
enable  us  to  test  the  less  trustworthy  data  of  the 
early  periods  to  which  we  must  go  back.  The 
increase  is  taken  from  the  enumeration,  not  from 
the  natural  or  birth-rate,  which  would  not  be 
the  best  test  of  the  rate  at  which  a  country  was 
progressing.  The  period  of  doubling  given  in 
column  9  is  of  course  liable  to  the  uncertainty 
inseparable  from  all  calculations  applied  to  the 
future,  with  its  varying  conditions. 

The  general  average  of  increase  for  each  of 
the  groups  is,  we  believe,  substantially  trust- 
worthy, though  it  cannot  be  said  to  be  absolutely 
accurate,  as  we  could  not  get  a  trustworthy 
official  return  for  the  same  years  in  each  case. 
If  there  is  an  error  in  these  figures  it  is  in  favour 
of  the  countries  in  the  first  group.  The  average 
for  France  is  decidedly  too  high,  if  applied  to 
the  future.  The  increase  of  late  is  owing  to 
the  temporary  influx  of  population  from  Alsace- 
Lorraine.  Austria-Hungary  and  Spain  are  per- 
haps a  little  too  low,  but  France,  with  its  large 
population  and  greater  excess,  fully  counter- 
balances that  defect,  which  we  found  no  means 
of  rectifying  from  the  returns,  which  are  all 
less  or  more  defective  for  these  two  countries. 
The  second  group  is,  if  there  be  any  error,  rather 


6o         A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS, 

unfavourable  to  Protestant  countries.  Even  if 
liable  to  prejudice  on  the  side  of  our  own  faith, 
no  right-minded  man  could  find  satisfaction  in 
contemplating  in  any  large  portions  of  Europe 
what  he  cannot  but  regard  as  signs  of  moral  as 
well  as  material  decay.  Besides,  the  contrast 
between  the  two  groups  is  so  great  as  to  beget 
a  feeling  of  incredulity,  which  a  judicious  con- 
troversialist would  rather  wish  to  bring  nearer 
to  the  limits  of  credibility.  But  there  can  be 
no  just  grounds  for  not  accepting  the  average  of 
1. 1 4  as  substantially  accurate. 

We  make  no  lengthened  comments  on  these 
striking  facts ;  we  leave  them  to  the  reflections 
of  our  readers.  They  will  be  viewed  differently 
by  different  men.  The  politician  will  see  in 
them  important  elements  of  the  balance  of 
power  and  the  direction  in  which  the  balance 
in  the  future  will  incline.  The  moralist  will 
speculate  on  the  causes  of  such  a  manifest  and 
persistent  tendency  to  increase  more  rapidly  in 
our  country  than  in  another  similarly  situated, 
and  will  discover  on  closer  inquiry  that  moral 
conditions  have  far  more  to  do  with  the  difference 
than  physical  laws.  The  Christian  will  discover 
that  religion  is  at  the  root  of  the  whole,  and 
will  be  able  to  discover  in  the  characteristic 
features  of  each  religion  a  sufficient  secret  cause 
for  these  diversities.    To  many  a  Eoman  Catholic 


NATIONALITIES  OF  EUROPE.  6i 

we  doubt  not  it  is  a  cause  of  sore  grief  and 
painful  grounds  of  anxiety  for  the  future  ;  to 
the  Protestant  good  ground  for  hope  and  courage, 
as  he  sees  the  steady  and  rapid  increase  of  the 
followers  of  his  own  faith,  but  he  will  see  no 
reason  to  boast  or  rest  satisfied.  The  deepest 
feeling  will  be  a  sense  of  responsibility,  and  a 
desire  that  the  world  should  be  benefited  by  the 
influences  which  have  made  his  creed  so  pro- 
ductive of  material  as  well  as  of  spiritual  fruits. 
We  cannot  stop  to  demonstrate  as  we  might  by 
statistical  reports  that  not  only  are  the  Protestant 
powers  increasing  most  rapidly  in  numbers,  but 
that  the  increase  is  in  a  still  greater  ratio  in 
wealth  and  all  the  elements  of  power.  The 
accumulation  of  wealth  in  England  and  America 
is  immeasurably  greater  than  that  in  the  rest  of 
the  world.  The  French  accumulate  by  saving 
in  small  sums  ;  the  Saxon  by  loroducing  wealth 
through  the  power  of  steam  and  the  spread  of 
commerce.  But  we  have  not  time  to  enlarge 
on  this  subject  as  we  intended.  The  facts  which 
we  had  collected  would  have  made  a  chapter  of 
great  significance,  and  well-fitted  to  call  forth 
gratitude  to  God  for  the  position  which  Pro- 
testant nations  hold,  and  to  deepen  a  sense  of 
responsibility. 


A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 


Note  I. — On  Doubtful  Classes  and  Minorities. 

We  shall  simplify  our  inquiry  by  ignoring  all  those  innumer- 
able and  miserable  distinctions  which  are  at  once  the  bane  and 
reproach  of  Protestants.  We  are  justified  in  doing  so,  both  be- 
cause they  are  all  of  one  mind,  not  only  in  the  fundamentals  of 
religion,  but  because  they  are  at  one  in  their  denunciation  of 
Popery,  while  the  Pope  and  the  many  difi'erent  parties  iu  that 
body  of  which  he  is  the  acknowledged  head  are  equally  divided 
and  unanimous  in  their  condemnation  of  all  Protestants.  Be- 
sides, the  characteristic  features  by  which  we  distinguished  the 
two  churches  apply  equally  to  all  the  divisions  within  the  two 
camps. 

We  shall  further  simplify  our  inquiry  by  taking  no  note  of 
those  in  the  two  opposed  parties  who  are  supposed  to  be  neutral 
in  religious  matters  or  only  nominally  attached  to  either.  There 
are  such  parties  on  both  sides,  and  they  are  practically,  though  not 
ostensibly,  attached  to  one  or  other  ;  they  are  on  the  one  hand 
influenced  by  the  opinions  of  the  party  to  which  they  may  have 
only  an  hereditary  connection,  and  on  the  other  hand  they  are  a 
direct  or  indirect  support  to  the  party.  They  may  not  be  pillars 
in  the  temple,  but  they  are  buttresses,  and  our  churches  are  gener- 
ally built  in  that  style  of  architecture  which  stands  in  need  of 
external  as  well  as  internal  support.  Besides,  the  class  to  which 
we  refer  are  found  in  all  lands  and  of  all  religions. 

We  make  no  account  of  those  so-called  atheists  and  avowed 
opponents  of  all  religions  ;  they  are  so  few  and  so  insignificant  as 
to  be  practically  inappreciable.  In  Germany,  which  is  not  noted 
for  its  faith  or  credulity,  there  were  only  3600  who  put  down 
their  names  as  free-thinkers  in  1871,  and  in  1880  there  were  only 
30,615  who  were  enrolled  under  the  head  of '' other  denomina- 
tions, and  of  no  religion."  The  latter  must  have  been  very  few,  as 
it  included  three  or  four  small  sects.  The  nine  millions  iu  France 
who  declined  to  enroll  themselves  as  either  Roman  Catholics  or 
Protestants  may  mean  much  or  little,  as  we  are  not  in  a  position 
to  estimate  its  value,  and  shall  put  them  down  to  the  credit  of 
the  predominant  religion  of  the  country.      They  will  form  an 


NATIONALITIES  OF  EUROPE. 


63 


ample  offset  to  the  miicli  smaller  number  of  a  similar  class  Avlio 
may  be  found  in  Protestant  countries. 

The  number  of  Roman  Catholics  in  England  is  set  down  by 
all  the  highest  authorities  at  about  one  million,  and  is  accepted 
in  the  last  edition  of  the  "  Encyclopoedia  Britannica."  But  we  are 
of  opinion  that  this  estimate  is  too  low,  as  that  given  in  respect- 
able authorities  (two  millions  for  Great  Britain)  is  certainly  too 
hish. 


Number  of  Roman  Catholics  in  Great  Britain  and  Ireland. 

We  have  just  received  from  Eome  a  most  interesting  and  valu- 
able volume,  published  for  the  first  time  this  year,  the  "  Missiones 
Catholicse  Ritus  Latini,  cura  S.  Congregationis  De  Propaganda 
Fide,"  in  which,  along  with  an  account  of  the  missions  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  to  all  lands,  Heathen  and  Protestant,  a 
full  return  is  given  of  the  number  of  persons  belonging  to  that 
Church  in  each  diocese  in  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland.  The 
following  are  the  tables  for  the  two  former,  which  we  give  in  full, 
that  parties  in  different  parts  of  the  country  may  test  them  for 
themselves.     That  for  Ireland  we  give  only  in  the  aggregate  : — 


England. 


Missions. 

Catholics. 

Priests. 

Churches. 

Arch. 

"Westminster 

200,000 

349 

118 

Dioce 

Birmingliani 

80,000 

200 

119 

Clifton 

20, 650 

96 

43 

Hexham      . 

121,000 

169 

109 

Leeds. 

122,198 

112 

83 

Liverpool    . 

316,280 

323 

14s 

Middlesborougli  . 

40,369 

73 

54 

Newport  5ind  Mineviu 

42,000 

68 

61 

Northampton 

7,712 

49 

54 

Nottingham 

25,000 

121 

70 

Plymouth  . 

14,000 

87 

52 

Portsmouth 

25,000 

7? 

54 

Salford        . 

210,365 

218 

109 

Shrewsbury 

49,000 

112 

74 

Southwark 

Total 

80,000 

197 

107 

1-353,574 

2,252 

1,25:^ 

64        A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 
Scotland. 


Missions. 

Catholics. 

Churches. 

Priests. 

Schools. 

Seminaries. 

Arch.  Glasgow- 
Arch.   Sfc.   Andrews  ) 

and  Edinburgh       ) 
Dioce.  Aberdeen 

„       ArgyU    .         . 

„       Dunkeld 

„       Galloway 

Total        . 

215,732 
43,208 

12,500 
11,000 

25,894 
17,000 

85 
62 

53 
40 

29 
39 

136 
53 
48 
23 
35 
24 

73 
35 
21 

io 
17 

I 
I 

325,334 

308 

319 

139 

2 

The  numbers  claimed  by  the  Roman  Catholic  Churcb  in  Eng- 
land and  Wales,  and  in  Scotland,  are  1,353,574  in  the  former,  and 
325,334  in  the  latter,  or  1,678,918  for  Great  Britain.  From  in- 
vestigations which  we  made  in  Scotland  some  time  ago,  in  which 
the  Catholic  priests  kindly  gave  me  all  the  information  in  their 
possession,  we  are  convinced  that  325,324  is  considerably  too 
high,  and  the  probabilities  are  that  that  for  England  is  also  high. 
Without  the  slightest  intention  to  mislead,  there  is  a  tendency  to 
overestimate  in  all  ecclesiastical  statistics,  and  as  absolute  accu- 
racy is  impossible,  we  are  disposed  to  set  down  the  number  of 
Roman  Catholics  in  England  and  Scotland  at  a  million  and  a 
half — that  is,  4.80  per  cent,  of  the  population  in  the  former  and 
6.67  per  cent,  in  the  latter,  or  about  5  per  cent,  of  the  population 
in  the  two  countries. 

We  have  no  means  of  comparing  the  rate  of  increase  in  Scot- 
land but  by  estimates  based  on  the  relative  number  of  marriages 
of  Roman  Catholics  as  compared  with  the  rest  of  the  population. 
Taking  the  period  after  the  famine,  which  led  to  a  great  increase 
of  Irishmen  in  this  country,  the  following  are  the  most  probable 
estimates  taken  from  the  "Encyclop;edia  Britannica  : "— 1851 
758,800,  or  4.22  per  cent,  of  the  population;  1854,  916,600,  or 
4.94  per  cent.  ;  1861,  927,000  or,  4.61  per  cent.  ;  1866,  982,000,  or 
4.62  per  cent.  If  our  estimate  of  1,250.000  for  England  be  ac- 
cepted, the  relative  increase  in  the  twenty  years  from  1861  to 
188 1  will  only  be  the  small  fraction  of  o.  1 8  per  cent.,  the  difierence 
between  4.62  and  4.80  per  cent.     Even  if  we  take  the  returns 


NATIONALITIES  OF  EUROPE.  65 

made  by  the  officials  in  the  different  diocese?,  tlie  increase  Avill 
only  be  0.40  per  cent,  in  twenty  years,  tlie  difference  between 
4.62  per  cent,  in  1861  and  5.02  per  cent,  in  1885. 

The  case  of  Ireland  is  clear  enough.  The  returns  by  the  Church 
gave  3,788,163  Roman  Catholics,  leaving  1,300,000  Protestants 
and  a  small  number  of  Jews,  and  allowing  for  the  decrease  of  the 
population  we  may  set  down  the  number  in  1886  at  3,600,000. 

The  number  of  Roman  Catholics  in  the  three  kingdoms  is  as 
near  as  we  can  estimate  for  1886  as  follows  : — 

Roman  Catholics. 

Ireland 3,650,000 

England  and  "Wales    ....  1,300,000 

Scotland 300,000 


Total        ....         5,250,000 

The  difference  between  Roman  Catholic  returns  and  those  of  the 
census  is  trifling.  Either  estimate  (for  the  Roman  tables,  though 
taking  the  form  of  returns,  are  based  on  the  estimate  of  the  priests  in 
each  diocese)  mahes  the  relation  of  Roman  Catholics  to  Protestants 
as  about  i  to  7  of  the  population  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland. 

Note  2. — Effect  of  Manufactures,  Commerce,  and  Emigration 
on  Population. 

History  has  shown  the  folly  of  founding  theories  on  the  sup- 
posed permanence  of  existing  social  conditions,  and  stamped 
emphatically  the  folly  of  such  attempts  to  interfere  with  natural 
laws.  Two  of  the  elements  which  were  completely  to  alter  the 
data  on  Avhich  those  theories  were  based  had  begun  to  develop 
themselves  before  they  were  formulated.  These  were  the  de- 
velopment of  manufactures  and  commerce  on  the  one  hand,  and 
the  increase  of  emigration  on  the  other.  By  the  former  our  little 
island  has  practically  enlarged  its  area  by  making  the  unculti- 
vated fields  of  the  thinly  peopled  countries  of  Europe  supply  the 
■wants  of  her  increasing  and  industrious  population,  and  latterly 
by  reaping  the  harvests  sown  by  her  own  cliildren  on  the  virgin 
plains  of  a  new  world.  The  second — emigration — has  assumed 
not  only  proportions  but  a  character  entirely  different  from  that 
of  any  previous  age,  unless  it  be  the  gradual  spreading  out  of  the 


66         A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

primeval  inhaMtants  of  the  world  into  the  unoccupied  regions 
around.  In  the  nineteenth  century  navigation  has  brought  the 
comparatively  uninhabited  regions  in  new  continents  within 
ea^y  access  of  the  densely  peopled  lands  of  the  old,  so  that 
emigration  has  become  a  personal  or  paternal  adventure,  in- 
stead of  being  carried  out  by  armed  bands  of  adventurers,  by 
the  conquest  and  partition  of  conquered  lands,  the  settlement 
of  disbanded  legions,  or  what  has  been  the  most  frequent  and 
universal  cause  of  emigration,  from  the  days  of  Moses  to 
those  of  the  Stuarts — the  persecutions,  of  which  religion  has 
been  the  direct  or  indirect  cause  or  occasion.  In  this  cen- 
tury emigration  has  been  promoted  by  the  development  of  the 
great  law  of  individuality  in  the  human  race — a  law  which 
broke  down  the  feudal  system,  and  its  artificial  substitute,  the 
absolute  authority  of  kings,  introducing  the  principle  of  repre- 
sentative government  by  slow  and  legal  reforms  in  our  own  and 
some  other  countries,  and  by  sudden  and  violent  convulsions  in 
France  and  other  lands. 

The  evidence  of  the  rapid  increase  of  population  during  the 
last  hundred  years  is  one  of  those  facts  which  is  now  put 
beyond  the  possibility  of  a  doubt.  The  annual  record  of  the 
"vital  statistics"  and  the  "returns"  of  the  "census"  in  every 
civilised  State,  the  annual  periodic  changes  or  "movement"  of 
the  population,  are  registered  with  a  degree  of  accuracy  which, 
for  all  practical  purposes,  may  be  called  absolutely  perfect,  com- 
pared with  the  old  "Bills  of  Mortality"  on  which  John  Graunt 
published  his  "Observations"  in  1661,  and  which  led  to  the 
poetic  effusions  of  Crabbe,  in  1807,  in  his  "Parish  Register." 

On  these  certain  data,  now  reduced  to  a  science,  we  can  not  only 
calculate  the  rate  of  progress  of  the  past,  but  foretell  with  some- 
thing of  prophetic  certainty  the  probabilities  of  the  future.  Had 
Crabbe  lived  in  our  day  he  might  have  sung,  with  the  inspiration 
of  the  modern  statistics,  of  the  rise  and  fall  of  Empires,  and  of 
the  triumphs  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 

The  increase  of  the  population  of  Europe  seems  to  date,  so  far 
as  we  can  ascertain,  from  the  period  subsequent  to  the  Reforma- 
tion. Gibbon  is  generally  allowed  to  be  not  far  from  the  truth 
when  he  estimates  the  population  of  the  Roman  Empire  at  the 
commencement  of  the  Christian  era  at  about  120^000,000,  though 


NATIONALITIES  OF  EUROPE.  67 

he  greatly  overestimates  it  wlien  he  compares  it  with  the  popula- 
tion of  Europe  in  his  own  day.  The  possessions  of  Rome  in  Asia 
Minor,  Syria,  Egypt,  and  in  the  north  of  Africa  were  more  than 
an  equivalent  in  population  for  Scandinavia,  Germania,  and 
Sarmatia,  wliich  did  not  come  within  the  boundaries  of  the 
dominion  of  Rome  ;  and  if  Gibbon  v/as  near  the  truth  in  reckon- 
ing the  population  at  about  120,000,000,  we  will  not  be  far  wrong 
in  estimating  the  population  of  Europe  at  100,000,000  in  the  first 
century  of  the  Christian  era.  It  is  probable  that  the  numbers 
decreased  with  the  decline  of  the  Empire.  It  is  scarcely  possible 
that  it  could  be  otherwise  during  the  centuries  of  oppression,  mis- 
government,  and  bloodshed  that  prevailed,  accompanied  as  they 
were  by  famine  and  pestilence,  which  rendered  an  increase  of  the 
people  if  not  impossible  at  least  most  improbable.  The  terrible 
devastations  of  the  hordes  of  barbarians  who  dismembered  and 
for  generations  ruled  with  despotic  power  the  separate  provinces 
must  have  added  to  the  misery  and  consequent  decrease  of  the 
population. 

The  rise  of  the  new  Empire,  or  resurrection  of  the  old,  under 
Charlemagne,  in  spite  of  the  cruel  wars  which  accompanied  its 
establishment  and  subsequently  divided  its  authority,  was,  we 
doubt  not,  the  beginning  of  a  better  era.  The  sumptuary  laws 
showed  some  regard  for  the  maintenance  of  human  life,  and 
when  the  Empire  was  broken  up  into  the  separate  nationalities 
as  they  are  naturally  marked  off  by  natural  boundaries,  or  by 
distinctions  of  race,  now  forming  the  great  nationalities  of  modern 
times,  the  establishment  of  independent  government  would  be 
the  means  of  restoring  fertility  to  the  rising  powers.  The  feudal 
system  in  the  then  existing  state  of  society  would  help  to  foster 
the  increase  of  the  clans  as  the  means  of  mutual  protection  ;  but 
all  these  advantages  were  marred  by  the  feuds  and  wars  of  the 
period,  so  that  the  increase  would  be  slow  and  fluctuating. 

The  real  commencement  of  a  new  era  of  progress  in  population 
was,  as  we  have  said,  at  the  reformation  of  religion  in  the  sixteenth 
century.  We  shall  not  now  give  the  reasons  fcjr  this  advance  in 
the  duration  and  multiplication  of  human  life.  At  present  we 
only  deal  with  it  as  a  fact. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  ascertain  the  rate  of  increase  of  population 
with  accuracy  prior  to  the  introduction  of  the  periodical  census, 


68         A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

which  was  first  tried  in  England  in  1801,  and  has  been  repeated 
every  ten  years  with  increasing  fulness  and  accuracy.  All 
civilised  countries  have  pursued  a  similar  course,  but  at  different 
periods  and  intervals,  some  of  them  with  greater  fulness  than 
ours,  many  of  them  including  a  column  for  the  religious  pro- 
fession of  the  people — a  great  want  in  that  of  our  country,  and 
one  which  we  hope  to  see  remedied  in  the  next  census. 

Note  3. — Former  Methods  of  Estimating  Populations. 

It  is  practically  impossible  to  form  perfectly  accurate  tables 
extending  over  large  areas  and  long  periods.  The  means  for 
obtaining  information  sufficiently  full  and  trustworthy  did  not 
exist  in  early  times,  and  the  materials  for  careful  estimates  were 
not  sufficiently  reliable,  while  the  constant  changes  in  the  area  of 
kingdoms  and  empires  have  greatly  complicated  the  problem. 

Early  statisticians  were  not,  however,  without  some  means  of 
arriving  at  tolerably  near  approximations,  had  they  taken  the 
trouble  to  make  a  judicious  use  of  them.  The  registers  of  the 
Christian  Church  were  formerly  the  most  trustworthy  sources  of 
information.  The  importance  attached  to  marriage  as  well  as 
baptism  in  the  Koman  Catholic  Church,  as  a  sacrament,  and  in 
the  Protestant  Churches  as  a  religious  rite,  secured  both  being 
duly  registered  and  pretty  carefully  preserved,  while  the  signifi- 
cance and  solemnity  of  death  demanded  an  equally  careful  record. 
In  some  countries,  after  the  Reformation,  these  records  seem,  as 
in  Scotland,  to  have  been  neglected,  probably  from  the  religious 
and  political  troubles  of  tlie  period.  In  England,  Henry  VIII. 
appointed  "  Thomas  Cromwell  the  King's  Vicegerent  for  ecclesias- 
tical jurisdiction  ;  and  in  that  capacity  he  issued  certain  injunc- 
tions to  the  clergy  in  the  year  1538.  One  of  these  injunctions 
ordained  '  that  every  officiating  minister  shall,  for  every  church, 
keep  a  book,  wherein  lie  shall  register  every  marriage,  christening, 
and  burial.'  .  .  .  Every  neglect  therein  being  penal."  It  was 
thoroughly  looked  into  in  the  first  year  of  the  reign  of  Edward  VI. ^ 
Malthus,  in  his  extensive  travels  over  nearly  all  Europe,  seems  to 
have  had  no  difficulty  in  examining  these  important  registers.  It 
is  only  toward  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  that  we  find  any- 

1  Quoted  in  Census  Returns  of  iSll. 


NATIONALITIES  OF  EUROPE.  69 

tiling  like  an  extensive  or  scientific  use  made  of  tlie  rate  of  births 
over  deaths,  recorded  in  these  registers,  as  a  means  of  ascertaining 
tlie  increase  or  diminution  of  the  population  ;  and  to  Malthus  is 
rightly  due  the  honour  of  making  the  most  laborious  and  accurate 
comparison  of  the  rate  in  the  different  countries  of  Europe. 

In  the  seventeenth  century  Edward  Chamberlayne  adopted  a 
simpler,  easier  method.  In  his  "  Anglise  Notitia,  or  Present 
State  of  England,"— a  work  which  went  through  twenty  editions 
in  his  lifetime,  and  which  he,  in  doubt  of  the  conservative  power 
of  the  press,  ordered  to  be  covered  with  wax  and  buried  along 
with  his  other  writings  in  his  tomb — made  the  following  calcu- 
lations :  "England  contains  9725  parishes;  now,  allowing  to 
each  parish  one  with  another  80  families,  there  will  be  778,000 
families,  and  to  each  family  7  persons,  there  will  be  found  in  all 
:;, 446,000  souls,  and  amongst  them  one  million  of  fighting  men," 
an  estimate  perhaps  not  far  from  the  mark  in  1668. 

Note  4. — Population  of  Europe  now  and  a  hundred  ijears  ago. 

But  let  us  now  endeavour  to  compare  the  population  of  Europe 
at  the  most  recent  censuses  with  the  population  of  a  hundred  years 
ago.  The  present  population  of  Europe  is  probably  not  less  than 
340,000,000.  Behm  and  Wagner,  in  their  last  publication,  "  Die 
Bevolkerung  der  Erde  YII.,"  published  in  1882,  but  calculated  for 
a  year  earlier  at  least,  give  the  population  of  Europe  at  327,743,414. 

Before  attempting  to  estimate  the  population  of  Europe  at 
remote  periods  let  us  glance  at  two  countries  from  which  we  may 
form  a  rough  approximation  to  the  probable  population  of  the 
whole. 

Mr.  John  M'Gregor,  M.P.,  in  his  "History  of  the  British 
Empire,"  says : — 

"  The  population  of  Britain  at  the  time  of  the  Roman  invasion 
is  almost  universally  estimated  at  less  than  1,000,000.  There  is 
also  a  general  concensus  among  historians  that  at  the  time  of  the 
Norman  Conquest  the  population  did  not  much  exceed  2,000,000. 
That  is  to  say,  while  the  15,000,000  of  inhabitants  crowded  on 
the  limited  area  of  our  little  island  in  the  year  1826  doubled  itself 
in  60  years,  the  sparse  population  scattered  over  the  same  area  in 
55  B.C.  took  more  than  1000  years  to  double  itself. 


70         A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

"  From  tliis  time  the  rate  of  increase  became  both  more  rapid 
and  more  regular,  and  yet  it  took  more  than  400  years  to  double 
itself  a  second  time,  or  about  six  times  as  long  as  it  does  at  the 
present  rate.  After  that  the  population  doubled  in  less  than  200 
years.  Then  it  doubled  in  about  130  years,  while  the  last 
doubling  has  taken  place  in  less  than  60  ;  and  if  it  continue  to 
increase  at  the  rate  of  the  last  ten  years,  it  'svill  be  doubled  in 
little  more  than  50  years." 


Note  5. — Population  :  Roman  Catholic  Governments  in  America. 

The  increase  of  the  Eoman  Catholic  powers  in  America  during 
the  century  cannot  be  accurately  estimated.  There  is  little  doubt 
but  that  Portugal  and  Spain  found  a  dense  population  in  the  coun- 
tries they  conquered  in  North  and  South  America,  but  the  people 
seem  to  have  been  degenerate  if  not  effete  when  they  came  under 
the  power  of  their  new  rulers,  and  became  converts,  of  a  doubtful 
kind,  to  Eoman  Catholic  religion.  It  is  probable  that  they  not 
only  profited  under  the  new  religion,  so  much  superior  to  the 
debasing  worship  to  which  the  religion  of  their  early  ancestors 
had  sunk,  but  that  the  strong  though  harsh  rule  to  which  they 
were  subjected  arrested  the  decline,  if  it  did  not  to  some  extent 
increase  the  population.  The  intermarriage  of  the  conquerors 
with  the  conquered,  in  this  as  in  all  such  cases,  tended  to  the 
gradual  disappearance  of  the  distinctive  feature  of  the  superior 
race,  and  their  subjection  to  the  habits  and  customs  of  the  natives. 
At  the  same  time,  the  infusion  of  new  blood  may  be  the  cause  of 
the  signs  of  new  life  and  energy  in  a  race  which  at  the  time  of  the 
conquest  seemed  in  a  fair  way  to  corruption  and  decay  or  death. 

It  is  notorious  that  these  nationalities  are  now  showing  signs  of 
reviving  prosperity  and  increase,  but  it  is  since  they  cast  off  both 
the  political  yoke  of  their  conquerors  and  the  exclusiveness  of  the 
Eoman  Catholic  religion,  by  which  they  had  been  isolated  from 
the  scientific  and  religious  thoughts  of  Europe  and  of  North 
America.  Since  the  establishment  of  their  independence,  these 
republics  have  declared  liberty  of  conscience  and  of  worship  for 
all  religions. 

That  the  increase  of  these  States  is  considerable  there  can  be 
no  doubt,  but  the  amount  of  the  increase  cannot  be  accurately 


NATIONALITIES  OF  EUROPE. 

measured.  The  official  census  returns,  after  i8So,  may  be  pretty 
accurate,  but  the  previous  returns  are  too  uncertain  to  form  a 
basis  of  calculation.  The  following  table,  including  the  chief 
States  in  which  the  Roman  Catholic  religion  is  slill  dominant, 
must  be  received  with  caution.  It  seems  to  show  an  increase  of 
about  2  per  cent,  per  annum.  Half  the  amount  would  be  in- 
credibly high  for  such  a  state  of  society.  But  to  give  these 
powers  the  benefit  of  a  doubt  we  should  say  .80  per  cent. 

Table  shoiciny  the  Population  under  the  Roman  Catholic  States  of 
America  in  Recent  Years. 


State. 

Date. 

Population. 

Date. 

— 1 
Population. 

Mexico    .... 

1874 

9,343,470 

1882 

10,460,703 

Brazil      .... 

1872 

9,930,478 

1885 

12,922,3751 

Peru        .... 

i860 

2,865,000 

1876 

2,657,863 

Colombia 

1870 

2,951,323 

1881 

4,000, ooqI 

Bolivia    .... 

1870 

2,0OO,000l 

1878 

2,303,000 

Argentine  Republic 

1869 

1,736,922 

1885 

3,ooo,oooi 

Venezuela 

1881 

2,075,000 

1884 

2,121,988 

Chili        .... 

1880 

2,183,434 

1884 

2,405,041 

1  Indicates  our  estimate. 

These  figures  are  too  uncertain  to  form  a  good  basis  for  the  cal- 
culation, of  a  rate  of  increase,  and  many  of  the  earlier  returns  are 
not  reliable.  First  attempts  of  this  kind  in  such  countries  are 
seldom  accurate  if  not  made  under  very  careful  supervision.  But 
they  undoubtedly  indicate  progress,  since  these  States  have  estab- 
lished their  independence.  If  they  had  been  increasing  at  the 
same  rate  during  the  hundred  years,  the  population  would  not 
now  be  so  sparse. 


Note  6. — Increase  of  Population  in  the  United  States  of  America. 

The  United  States  of  America,  which  by  its  rapid  rise  promises 
to  become  one  of  the  great  forces  of  future  ages,  has  from  first 
to  last  been  essentially  a  Protestant  power.  The  number  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  population  is  only  a  fraction  of  the  whole,  and 
while  increasing  in  numbers  as  compared  with  itself,  it  decreases 
yearly  in  comparison  with  the  entire  population.     The  following 


72 


A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 


is  tlie  return  made  to  the  headquarters  of  the  Church  in  Rome, 
and  published  in  the  Missiones  Catholicce  for  1886 : — 


Catholics 

7,410,478 

Priests  .... 

7,306 

Churches 

6,772 

Chaj^els 

1,047 

Parochial  schools  . 

2,596 

Scholars 

492,949 

This  has  all  the  appearance  of  being  a  substantially  accurate 
return,  though  probably,  like  most  such  estimates,  or  ecclesiastical 
returns,  rather  over  than  under  the  mark.  The  proportion  of 
priests  to  the  people  is  less  than  it  is  in  England  by  about  50 
per  cent.  It  is  less  than  the  proportion  in  Scotland,  though  not 
far  from  what  it  is  in  Ireland.  In  America,  Ireland,  and  Scot- 
land the  priests  are  slightly  under  i  in  the  1000  of  the  Catholic 
population.  In  England  they  are  more  than  i-|  in  the  1000. 
But  accepting  the  number  as  it  stands,  Roman  Catholics  are  not 
one  in  seven  of  the  population  of  the  United  States — the  same  as 
in  Great  Britain  and  Ireland. 


(  n  ) 


CHAPTEE  III. 

PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIAN  NATIONS  COMPARED 
WITH  THOSE  UNDER  THE  DOMINANT  RELI- 
GIONS OF  THE   WORLD. 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  form  an  opinion  of 
the  effect  of  the  different  religions  of  the  world 
on  the  increase  of  the  population,  and  within 
certain  limits  to  reduce  the  question  to  some- 
thing like  arithmetical  proportions.  We  do 
not  pretend  to  have  reached  mathematical  pre- 
cision ;  the  data  are  not  sufficiently  accurate. 
The  census  as  a  scientific  instrument  has  not 
been  applied  for  a  sufficient  length  of  time  in 
many  parts  of  the  earth  to  allow  of  anything 
like  absolute  accuracy ;  but  there  is  enough  to 
warrant  important  conclusions  bearing  on  the 
welfare  of  the  individual,  the  nation,  and  the 
human  race. 

I.   ''Religion:''  hoiv  understood. 

We  shall  use  the  term  "  religion  "  in  no  narrow 
or   exclusive   sense.      While    firmly   convinced 


74         A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

that  the  Christian  religion  is  the  only  true  form 
of  religions  belief  and  worship,  and  personally 
attached  to  the  strictest  sect  of  Protestants,  we 
gladly  recognise  elements  of  divine  truth  in  all 
the  great  religions  of  the  w^orld.  It  would  be 
not  only  a  satire  upon  humanity  but  a  censure 
on  the  Creator  to  suppose  that  any  form  of  reli- 
gion could  generally,  and  for  any  length  of  time, 
be  believed  and  practised,  if  there  were  not  in  it 
something  which  appealed  to  the  higher  part  of 
the  nature  of  man,  and  to  some  extent  met  its 
wants  and  cravings.  Not  only  so,  but  it  is  this 
element  of  truth  in  false  systems  of  religion 
which  makes  men  cling  to  the  forms  in  which 
they  have  been  born  and  educated,  in  preference 
to  truer  and  purer  forms  when  presented  to 
them ;  so  that  the  more  of  truth  there  is  in  a 
false  system,  the  greater  the  difficulty  in  con- 
verting men  to  a  higher  and  better  religion. 

We  believe  with  the  Apostle  Paul  that  God 
*'  has  not  left  Himself  without  a  witness  "  in  any 
nation,  but  that  Pie  has  used  means  for  preserv- 
ing the  religions  of  the  world  from  the  effects 
of  that  tendency  to  formalism  and  corruption  to 
which  every  religion  is  liable.  This  truth  applies 
not  only  to  the  purer  forms  of  religion  in  Chris- 
tendom, but  to  the  heathen  systems  of  Asia. 
The  most  remarkable  proof  of  this  is  seen  in 
that  mysterious  wave  of  religious  revival  in  the 


PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIAN  NATIONS.  75 

sixth  century  B.C.,  which  moved  the  minds  of 
men  from  the  extreme  west  and  east  of  the  then 
known  world. 

Four  men  were  raised  up  almost  simul- 
taneously in  China,  India,  Persia,  and  Greece, 
whose  teaching  and  lives  did  much,  not  only  to 
purify  religion,  but  to  preserve  and  perpetuate 
the  human  race.  Not  that  they  did  this  by  mere 
personal  effort.  They  were  representative  men 
and  leaders,  but  there  was  a  preparation  in  the 
sentiment  infused  into  the  men  of  the  age  they 
lived  in,  or  their  personal  efforts  would  have 
failed.  The  beneficent  influence  of  Confucius 
has  only  been  exceeded  by  that  of  the  founder 
of  the  Christian  religion.  That  of  Buddha,  for 
a  considerable  period,  arrested  the  destructive 
influence  of  Brahminical  corruption  and  caste. 

Zoroaster  purified  Babylonian  idolatry,  and 
Pythagoras  raised  a  higher  standard  of  religious 
thought  and  moral  feeling  in  the  degenerate 
Greek  race,  which  lasted  as  a  theory  of  morals, 
and  to  some  extent  helped  to  prepare  for  the 
introduction  of  the  practical  teaching  of  Chris- 
tianity. It  seems  more  philosophical  to  trace 
these  movements,  so  beneficial  to  the  human 
race,  to  the  overruling  influence  of  a  superhuman 
power  than  to  the  fortuitous  coincidence  of 
simultaneous  movements,  or  the  undiscovered 
connection  with  a  common  origin,  affecting  as 


76         A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

it  did  so  many  different  minds  and  masses  of 
population. 


2.  Religion  and  Race, 

In  giving  the  numbers  of  the  population 
of  the  world  under  the  different  religious 
creeds,  both  in  Christian  and  heathen  lands, 
we  shall  be  struck  by  the  fact  that  creeds  are, 
to  a  very  large  extent,  coincident  with  the 
races  of  the  human  family.  So  much  so,  that  it 
will  be  difficult  to  say,  in  regard  to  the  increase 
or  decrease  of  population,  whether  it  was  the 
religion  or  the  race  which  had  to  do  with  the 
movement  of  population,  or  whether  it  was  a 
combination  of  the  two.  We  shall  not  here 
discuss  this  question,  which,  after  all,  is  not  so 
important  as  it  seems  at  first  sight  to  be.  In 
fact  it  is  not  at  all  material  to  the  subject,  for 
either  it  was  the  religion  that  made  the  race 
what  it  is,  developing  those  spiritual,  moral, 
mental,  and  physical  characteristics  which  dis- 
tinguish it,  or  it  was  the  race  distinguished  by 
such  characteristics  which  chose  that  religion, 
because  it  preferred  it  as  that  which  commended 
itself  to  its  higher  instincts,  and  satisfied  the 
cravings  of  its  spiritual  nature.  It  would  not 
affect  our  inquiry  even  if  we  admitted  that 
religion  was  the  outcome  of  the  nataral  working 


PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIAN  NATIONS.  77 

of  the  human  mincl,  rather  than,  as  we  believe 
it  is  in  its  higher  forms,  an  emanation  from  a 
superhuman  source. 

We  do  not  treat  of  the  question  of  compara- 
tive numbers  to  be  classed  under  the  different 
religious  systems.  That  would  be  no  test  of 
their  tendency  to  promote  or  retard  the  increase 
of  population.  It  is  not  only  where  the  religion 
is  that  of  the  government,  and  has  a  direct  or 
indirect  influence  on  its  laws  and  administra- 
tion, that  it  can  have  any  material  influence  on 
population. 

We  shall  begin  with  those  races  w^hich  are 
under  those  forms  of  religion  which  we  find  to 
be  the  least  progressive  in  population,  and  rise 
to  those  which  are  productive  of  the  highest 
results  in  this  respect. 

I.  Fetichism  ^  is  unquestionably  the  least  pro- 
ductive form  of  religion.  Taken  as  a  whole, 
the  populations  under  its  influence  are  probably 
stationary,  or  on  the  decrease. 

In  Equatorial  and  Southern  Africa  they  are 
on  the  decrease,  although  capable  of  rapid  self- 
propagation  if  left  free  from  intestine  wars  or 
taken   under  the   protection   of   some  civilised 

*  We  accept  the  word,  though  unscientific  both  in  its  origin  and  use. 
At  first  used  by  the  Portuguese,  it  spread  to  France  and  Germany,  and 
has  come  to  be  used  as  practically  the  accepted  name  for  the  lowest 
form  of  religious  worship. 


yS         A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

power ;  but  left  to  themselves,  having  no  re- 
straints in  morality  or  religion,  they  mutually 
destroy  each  other,  and  the  contact  of  modern 
civilisation,  if  not  accompanied  with  its  control, 
is  apt  to  intensify  the  work  of  destruction,  by 
the  spread  of  new  forms  of  disease,  and  the 
introduction  of  spirits  and  powder  increases  and 
intensifies  their  passions  and  powers  of  mutual 
destruction. 

In  Northern  Africa  they  are  on  the  increase, 
and  as  that  probably  includes  two-thirds  of  the 
population  of  the  continent,  the  increase  in  the 
one  may  be  left  to  counterbalance  the  decrease 
of  the  other,  especially  when  we  take  into 
account  the  arrest  of  the  decrease  and  in  some 
cases  the  positive  increase  under  the  protection 
of  Britain  and  other  European  powers  in  the 
south  and  west  of  Africa. 

Other  races  under  this  Fetich  religion  are  not 
only  decreasing,  but  are  apparently  in  a  state  of 
hopeless  decay.  In  the  Pacific  Islands,  includ- 
ing Australia  and  New  Zealand,  and  in  both 
North  and  South  America,  they  are  dying  out ; 
but  in  the  Straits  of  Malacca  they  are  on  the 
increase,  under  the  protection  or  influence  of 
Britain  and  Holland,  but  arc  rapidly  adopting 
the  monotheistic  religion  of  Islam.  Taken  as 
a  whole,  therefore,  we  may  regard  this  portion 
of  the  earth's  inhabitants  as  on  the  decrease, 


PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIAN  NATIONS.  79 

especially  those  who  are  independent  of  the 
humanising  rule  of  some  monotheistic  govern- 
ment. These  independent  tribes  of  Fetich 
worshippers  in  all  parts  of  the  world  may  be 
roughly  estimated  at  about  130  millions.  None 
of  the  peoples  who  adhered  to  these  forms  of 
religion  could  be  said  to  have  risen  to  a  state  of 
civilisation,  or  to  have  formed  a  system  of  laws 
or  a  ritual  of  worship.  Some  of  them  show 
traces  of  having  sunk  from  a  state  of  semi- 
civilisation,  and  hold  traditions  of  a  higher  form 
of  religion  than  that  which  they  now  practise. 

II.  Polytheism  is  no  longer  the  religion  of 
any  self-ruling  independent  power  in  any  country. 

Buddhism,  though  professed  by  a  large  number 
of  people,  is  not  the  religion  of  any  ruling  race 
in  the  world  worthy  of  being  called  a  nation. 
The  only  apparent  exceptions  are  such  countries 
as  Siam,  Japan,  Thibet,  Corea,  and  the  States 
on  the  Southern  Peninsula  of  China.  But  these 
exceptions  are  only  apparent.  Japan,  as  a  nation, 
is  much  more  under  the  dominion  of  Shintoism 
than  of  Buddhism,  and  Corea  is  more  under  the 
influence  of  the  Chinese  Ancestral  worship  than 
that  of  Buddha,  while  the  same  could  be  said 
of  the  Southern  States  which  are  now  being 
brought  under  the  protection  of  France,  as 
formerly  they  were  under  that  of  China.     In  the 


So        A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

case  of  Siam,  we  know  so  little  of  what  it  was 
before  it  came  to  a  large  extent  under  British 
influence  (as  seen  not  only  in  its  commerce,  but 
in  the  employment  of  many  Englishmen  in  her 
service,  especially  in  her  army  and  navy),  that 
we  cannot  tell  what  the  effect  of  Buddhism  is 
on  the  increase  of  the  population.  From  the 
nature  of  the  system,  it  is  not  likely  to  favour 
the  increase  of  population.  It  discredits  mar- 
riage, by  treating  it  as  an  inferior  state  to  that  of 
the  monk  or  nun ;  and  though  it  treats  life  as 
sacred  by  attaching  as  much  importance  to  that 
of  an  insect  as  of  a  man,  it  lowers  the  latter, 
rather  raises  that  of  the  former,  and  life  in 
any  form  being  an  evil  only  to  be  endured,  its 
tendency  is  not  favourable  to  the  increase  of 
the  human  race. 

JBrahmanism,  the  only  other  great  religious 
system  of  Polytheism,  is  no  longer  the  religion 
of  any  independent  nation.  The  nationalities 
of  India  which  still  maintain  a  separate  existence 
are  not  independent.  They  exist  by  sufferance, 
and  the  greatest  of  them  have  received  their 
self-government  from  the  hands  of  Great  Britain. 
Education  by  the  schools  and  press  has  given 
new  ideas  to  both  rulers  and  people.  Sanitary 
rules  as  well  as  the  administration  of  law  are 
entirely  remodelled  on  modern  principles,  under 
which  the  natural  rate  of  increase  is  almost  as 


PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIAN  NATIONS.  8i 

high  as  it  is  in  the  British  possessions  in 
India ;  entirely  different  from  what  it  was  under 
the  native  rule,  before  British  authority  was 
established. 

III.  Of  Monotheistic  religions,  we  find  only 
two  outside  the  Christian  systems  that  claim 
our  attention — those  that  bear  the  names  of 
Mohammed  and  Confucius.  The  former  takes 
the  lower  place — immeasurably  lower  as  respects 
the  increase  of  population. 

Mohammedan  powers  are  all  on  the  decline. 
The  principal  of  them,  Turkey,  Persia,  and 
Afghanistan,  have  all  lost  both  territory  and 
population  during  the  century.  Turkey  and 
Persia  have  suffered  from  the  encroachment  of 
Kussia,  the  representative  of  the  Greek  Church, 
and  Afghanistan  has  been  hemmed  in  by  Russia 
on  the  one  side  and  by  England  on  the  other, 
while  she  has  suffered  from  the  effects  of  war. 
In  the  present  century,  with  the  exception  of 
the  North  of  Africa,  Mohammedanism  has  not 
increased  except  under  the  protection  of  Chris- 
tian powers  like  Great  Britain,  the  Netherlands, 
Eussia,  and  France.  Even  Eussia  has  improved 
the  condition  and  increased  the  number  of 
Mohammedans  in  her  eastern  possessions.  Of 
Egypt  with  its  joint  protection  we  cannot  speak 
as  an  independent  power,  and  it  is  impossible 


82         A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

to  tell  the  movements  of  the  population  in 
Morocco.  The  estimates  vary  from  a  little  over 
2,000,000  to  as  many  as  8,000,000,  nor  can  the 
increase  in  the  Soudan  and  neighbouring  terri- 
tories under  petty  chiefs  be  accurately  estimated. 
It  is  only  known  to  be  considerable.  We  shall 
therefore  set  down  the  population  of  the  inde- 
pendent Mohammedan  powers  as  stationary  or 
retrograde. 

The  following  is  the  nearest  approximation  to 
the  present  state  of  the  independent  powers 
now  professing  the  Mohammedan  religion  : — 

Islam. 

Tarkish  Empire 43,000,000 

Persia 7,600,000 

Afglianistan  and  Smaller  States        .         .  5,500,000 

Morocco  and  Smaller  States      .        .        .  9,000,000 

For  Soudan,  &c.,  say         ....  25,000,000 


Total        .        .        .      90,100,000 

Confucianism,  the  other  great  non-Christian 
system,  is  that  which  Confucius  may  be  said  to 
have  petrified  as  a  religion  and  perpetuated  as  a 
moral  force,  of  which  he  was  himself  the  imper- 
sonation, by  which  he  moulded  the  social  and 
political  relations  of  society  in  the  largest  Empire 
in  the  world's  history.  The  personality  of  Con- 
fucius not  only  dominates  the  millions  of  China  ; 
Japan  and  Corea  have  been  moulded  under  his 
influence,  and  Cochin-China  to  a  less  extent, 


PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIAN  NATIONS.  83 

all  these  States  being  for  the   greater  part  of 

the  hundred  years  tributary  to  the  Emperor  of 
China. 


3.  TJie  Population  of  China. 

From  the  earliest  times  the  vast  population  of 
China  has  formed  the  subject  of  inquiry  and  spe- 
culation, and  as  might  have  been  expected  it  has 
led  all  kinds  of  writers  to  theorise  upon  it,  many 
of  whom  had  no  special  qualification  for  such 
work.  As  many  of  these  writers  can  plead  that 
they  have  visited  the  country,  or  passed  through 
it,  or  lived  in  it,  they  are  supposed  to  be  compe- 
tent judges  of  the  number  of  its  inhabitants,  and 
to  speak  with  an  authority  which  overawes  the 
judgment  of  the  multitude.  One  result  of  recent 
discussions  of  this  subject  is  that  it  has  become 
the  fashion  to  set  aside  the  census  returns  of  the 
population  of  China  as  if  they  were  of  no  more 
value  than  the  thin  paper  on  which  they  are 
written.  The  opinion  of  a  man  who  has  tra- 
velled 1000  miles  on  some  of  the  highways  of  a 
country  which  is  about  2000  miles  long  and 
nearly  as  many  broad  is  set  up  in  opposition  to 
systematic  census  returns  of  the  whole  of  China, 
made  by  tens  of  thousands  of  officials,  who  are 
less  or  more  accustomed  to  the  work  from  year 
to  year.     For,  be  it  understood,  China  has  from 


84         A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

a  very  early  period  made  a  frequent  census  of 
her  people.  Indeed,  the  theory  is  that  a  census 
should  be  made  every  year,  and  specially  verified 
every  five  years.  And  yet  we  find  able  men 
attempting  to  settle  the  question  by  observation 
of  a  few  districts,  or  by  scientific  methods,  or  by 
the  inner  consciousness  of  theorists  in  England. 
But  if  the  Chinese  Government  has  been  in 
the  habit  of  making  a  census,  why  all  this  uncer- 
tainty. The  reason  is  not  far  to  seek.  Most  of 
those  who  have  written  on  the  subject  have  ap- 
proached it  with  ideas  derived  from  the  scientific 
methods  of  recent  times  and  a  state  of  society 
similar  to  our  own,  in  expectation  of  finding 
the  census  of  China  drawn  up  on  the  same  model, 
and  with  as  great  accuracy  as  those  of  Europe 
or  America.  If  they  had  approached  the  study 
of  the  question  with  a  little  experience  of  the 
difficulty  of  ascertaining  the  population  of  Eng- 
land in  the  days  of  the  Conqueror,  with  nothing 
but  Domesday-Book  to  guide  them,  they  would 
have  been  more  likely  to  arrive  at  a  correct  con- 
clusion.^ With  a  little  experience  of  this  line 
of  inquiry,  and  some  knowledge  of  China  and 
other  old-fashioned  countries,  let  us  see  if  we 
cannot  get  a  fair  conception  of  the  population  of 

1  The  census  in  China  has  no  resemblance  to  Domesday-Book,  except 
in  so  far  as  that  document  deals  with  population,  and  in  this  respect 
the  Chinese  census  is  the  more  simple  and  systematic. 


PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIAN  NATIONS.  85 

that  wonderful  land.  Absolute  accuracy  is,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  not  to  be  looked  for. 

To  understand  the  census  returns  of  China 
we  need  to  have  a  distinct  idea  of  the  objects 
for  which  the  Government  have  from  time 
immemorial  tried  to  ascertain  the  number  of  the 
people.  These  are,  first,  for  purposes  of  taxa- 
tion, as  in  all  other  countries ;  but  a  second 
object,  and  one  highly  honourable  to  the  huma- 
nity of  the  Government,  was  to  ascertain  the 
number  of  the  people  for  whom  provision  was  to 
be  made  in  case  of  famine,  by  laying  up  store 
in  each  district  according  to  the  extent  of  its 
population.  This  was  the  theory  of  the  ancient 
Emperors  of  China,  unhappily  little  attended  to 
of  late.  Another  object,  which  was  only  aimed 
at  occasionally,  was  to  know  the  number  of  men 
capable  of  bearing  arms,  for  which  a  census  was 
made  at  irregular  intervals  of  all  the  men  over 
sixteen  years  of  age.  A  fourth  object  was  to 
enable  the  Emperor,  as  high-priest  of  the  nation, 
to  present  the  number  of  the  people  on  the 
altar  at  the  yearly  sacrifice. 

To  carry  out  these  four  objects,  the  Govern- 
ment has  from  time  immemorial  taken  a  census 
of  the  population.  Eor  the  purposes  of  taxation 
they  counted  the  heads,  and  for  provision 
against  famine  they  counted  the  mouths.  The 
former  meant  only  the  heads  of  families;  the 


86         A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

latter  was  the  whole  population.  The  "  mouths" 
were  generally  made  out  not  by  enumeration, 
but  by  calculating  the  number  of  persons  in  the 
family,  and  from  this  has  arisen  a  great  cause 
of  uncertainty  and  a  fruitful  source  of  error. 
The  census  in  China  may  be  said  to  be  an  esti- 
mate based  on  a  return  of  the  heads  of  families. 
The  number  of  the  family  is  an  uncertain  quan- 
tity.^ It  differs  not  only  in  the  minds  of  dif- 
ferent enumerators,  but  it  differs  in  various 
provinces,  so  much  so  that  you  may  find  China- 
men employing  any  number  from  3  to  8  as  a 
numerator  for  finding  the  population  from  the 
family.  But  it  is,  we  believe,  the  general  rule 
to  take  6  as  the  numerator.  In  earlier  times  it 
seems  to  have  been  5. 

It  would  be  unreasonable  to  expect  perfect 
accuracy  in  ascertaining  even  the  exact  number 
of  families  in  a  vast  country  like  China,  with 
an  imperfect  executive,  corrupt  officials,  and  a 
population  ingenious  in  evasion ;  but  it  was  in 
former  times  the  interest  of  the  official  to  make 
a  correct  return  of  the  heads  for  the  sake  of 
keeping  up  the  taxes  of  his  province,  and  it 
was  also  his  interest  and  that  of  the  people  to 
keep  up  the  full  return  of  the  mouths  for  the 

^  We  are  aware  that  an  accurate  list  of  the  number  of  each  family 
is  supposed  to  be  placed  at  the  door  of  each  house  in  China ;  but  as 
this  list  is  made  by  the  parent,  not  by  the  enumerator  by  personal 
observation,  its  accurac}'  in  a  country  like  China  is  quite  unreliable. 


PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIAN  NATIONS.  87 

sake  of  provision  in  times  of  famine  when  that 
provision  was  made,  as  it  was  more  or  less  until 
a  recent  period. 

Another  source  of  difficulty  in  arriving  at  a 
correct  knowledge  of  the  population  of  China 
lies  in  the  wars,  and  still  more  the  rebellions, 
which  have  been  so  frequent  in  that  countiy, 
generally  supposed  to  have  been  so  peaceful  and 
monotonous  in  its  history.  It  is  said  that  sixty 
successful  rehellions  can  be  counted,  and  no  man 
knows  the  number  of  the  unsuccessful.  These 
rebellions  have  aff"ected  the  census  in  two  ways 
— first,  by  the  actual  destruction  of  the  people ; 
and  second,  and  to  a  much  greater  extent,  by 
cutting  off*  entire  provinces  from  the  possibility 
of  enumeration,  just  as  three  provinces  were  left 
out  of  account  in  Domesday-Book. 

That  China  is  capable  of  and  actually  supports 
a  population  of  380  millions  is  quite  within  the 
range  of  probability  when  we  consider  the  ex- 
tent and  nature  of  the  country,  its  climate,  and 
the  character  and  habits  of  its  inhabitants.  This 
estimate  is  not  only  based  on  the  most  trust- 
worthy statistics,  but  is  supported  by  the  testi- 
mony of  the  most  reliable  witnesses,  and  the 
highest  authorities  in  Germany  and  this  country. 
The  following  considerations  will,  we  trust,  satisfy 
any  reasonable  man  that  the  land  is  fully  able  to 
support  250  or  260  on  an  average  to  the  square 


88        A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

mile,  (a.)  The  population  live  almost  entirely 
on  vegetable  diet,  so  that  the  ground  supports 
many  more  than  it  would  do  if  they  ate  animal 
food,  (h.)  The  Chinese  are  perhaps  the  most  skil- 
ful cultivators  in  the  world,  making  the  most  ad- 
vantageous use  of  all  kinds  of  manures,  which  are 
collected  with  the  greatest  care,  and  applied  with 
the  utmost  skill,  as  in  a  system  of  gardening,  to 
ever}^  patch  of  ground  on  the  hillsides,  or  that 
can  be  made  available  by  rude  terraces.  Sea- 
weeds are  collected  on  the  shore,  and  the  sea  is 
dredged  for  shells  to  be  burned  for  liming  the 
little  fields,  (c.)  The  harvest  of  the  sea  is 
gathered  with  a  diligence  unknown  in  any 
other  country.  Hivers  are  fished  by  every  method 
by  which  it  is  possible  to  catch  the  prey  by  fraud 
or  force,  and  estuaries  are  turned  into  farms  for 
pisciculture,  (d.)  The  only  kinds  of  animal 
food  in  which  they  indulge  is  that  of  animals 
which  feed  on  refuse  or  chance  food,  such  as  the 
pig,  the  dog,  the  duck,  the  fowl,  and  the  goat. 
In  fact  they  are  a  people  to  whom  rats  are  a 
rarity,  and  *'  kitten  cutlets  "  and  "  pnppy  pies  " 
a  luxury;  even  the  fish  is  chiefly  used  as  a  flavour 
to  the  rice,  which  is  the  staff  of  life,  (c.)  The 
climate  of  most  parts  of  the  country  is  such  as  to 
allow  of  two  and  in  some  cases  three  crops  being 
gathered  in  the  year  by  their  admirable  system 
of  irrigation  and  farming,  or  rather  gardening. 


PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIAN  NATIONS.  89 

We  do  not  count  on  any  great  increase  in  the 
dependencies  of  the  Empire.  The  form  assumed 
by  Buddhism  in  Thibet  is  unfavourable  to  in- 
crease, and  the  nomadic  habits  of  the  Mongols 
and  Manchus  are  not  favourable,  though  they  are 
not  so  much  under  the  blighting  influence  of 
Lamaism. 

It  would  weary  the  general  reader  to  go  over 
the  process  of  proof  by  which  we  arrive  at  the 
conclusion  that  the  population  of  China  is  not 
far  from  the  high  figure  which  is  claimed  for  it 
by  the  Government — a  claim  which  is  allowed  by 
the  highest  authorities  in  this  country  and  •  on 
the  Continent  and  in  America.  It  is  vain  to 
expect  anything  like  absolute  accuracy  in  such 
a  case,  or  even  such  a  measure  of  accuracy  as 
we  find  in  the  recent  returns  of  European  coun- 
tries. The  discussion  of  this  question  we  throw 
into  a  brief  dissertation  at  the  end  of  the 
book. 


4.  I7ie  Religion  of  China. 

The  religion  under  which  the  population  of 
China  has  grown  up  is  that  for  which  we  can 
find  no  better  designation  than  that  of  Mono- 
theistic-Ancestral religion  —  a  corrupted  form 
of  the  Patriarchal  religion  of  which  we  have 
examples  in  the  earlier  chapters  of  the  Bible,  in 


90         A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

which  the  father  of  the  family  or  the  head  of  the 
tribe  acts  as  both  ruler  and  priest.  In  China 
this  system  never  underwent  the  modification  to 
which  it  was  subjected  under  the  Mosaic  system, 
which  provided  for  the  separation  of  the  priestly 
from  the  kingly  offices,  and  introduced  a  body 
of  Levites,  or  subordinate  religious  functionaries, 
who  could  act  as  the  teachers  of  the  people,  and 
keep  up  religious  worship  throughout  the  coun- 
try, as  was  eventually  done  in  the  synagogues 
of  the  Jews.  The  want  of  this  modification  of 
Ancestral  worship  has  led  to  a  twofold  evil  in 
China.  First,  it  has  spread  throughout  the 
Empire  the  impression  that  no  one  has  the  right 
of  direct  approach  to  the  Supreme  Being  by 
sacrificial  rites  or  public  worship  except  the 
Emperor,  as  the  head  and  high-priest  of  the 
nation,  when,  amongst  other  religious  acts,  he 
lays  the  census  of  the  population  on  the  altar ; 
and  second,  it  has  prepared  the  way  for  the 
introduction  of  Buddhism,  as  a  supplementary 
religion,  suited  to  the  wants  of  the  people,  who 
must  have  some  form  of  external  worship.  It 
is  only  in  this  sense  that  Buddhism  can  be  called 
the  religion  of  any  large  number  of  the  people 
of  China.  It  has  never  supplanted  to  any 
appreciable  extent  the  old  Ancestral  worship, 
although  it  has  partially  modified  and  added  to 
it.     It  is  great  injustice,  and  a  gross  misrepre- 


PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIAN  NATIONS.  91 

sentation  of  the  Chinese  people,  to  say  that 
Buddhism  is  the  religion  of  that  country.  So 
far  as  we  know  only  one  Emperor  ever  professed 
to  believe  in  it,  and  even  he  dared  not  in  the 
smallest  degree  interrupt  the  old  form  of  wor- 
ship in  his  official  capacity.  The  number  of 
Chinamen  who  have  actually  renounced  the 
Ancestral  for  the  Buddhist  religion  is  not 
greater  than  that  of  professed  atheists  in  Chris- 
tian countries — only  a  fraction. 

It  is  impossible  to  separate  the  Chinese  into 
two  or  three  definite  sects.  All  are  what  is 
vulgarly  called  Confucianists,  but  probably 
more  than  two-thirds  of  the  people  practise 
Buddhism  less  or  more,  especially  the  women. 
So  far  as  the  subject  under  consideration  is 
concerned,  we  may  ignore  both  Buddhism  and 
Laoutzism.  Neither  materially  influence  the 
government  of  the  country  or  the  increase  of  the 
population.  Did  time  permit,  we  might  show 
how  well  this  Ancestral  worship  is  fitted  to 
promote  the  increase  of  a  population. 

The  rate  of  increase  in  this,  the  only  religion 
outside  the  Christian  system  which  can  be  called 
the  religion  of  a  ruling  race,  is,  as  far  as  we  can 
make  out,  about  .60  per  cent,  per  annum,  reckon- 
ing over  the  whole  period,  and  may  be  repre- 
sented thus  for  the  hundred  years.^ 

^  In  all  the  estimates  for  populations  outside  of  Europe  it  must  be 


92        A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 
Monotheistic  Ancestral  Worship. 


Powers. 

1786. 

1886. 

Increase. 

Millions. 

Millions. 

Millions. 

China  Proper 

230 

368 

138 

Dependencies 

16 

20 

4 

246 

388 

142 

Japan    . 

25 

38 

13 

Corea    . 

8 

lo.s 

2.5 

279  436.5  157-5 


5.  Roman  Catholic  Powers. 

The  increase  of  the  Roman  Catholic  powers 
of  Europe  we  found  to  be  about  .50  per  cent, 
per  annum.  To  these  we  must  add  the  Eoman 
Catholic  States  of  America.  In  these  the  increase 
seems  to  have  been  considerable  since  the  estab- 
lishment of  their  independence,  but  as  that  does 
not  cover  the  period,  and  still  more  owing  to  the 
uncertainty  of  the  census  in  successive  years  we 
cannot  raise  the  rate  of  increase  for  the  hundred 
years.     They  may  fairly  be  put  down  thus  : — 

understood  that  we  do  not  pretend  to  absolute  accuracy.  Even  those 
in  Europe  are  liable  to  considerable  errors  ;  but  I  am  not  aware  of 
having  put  down  any  without  a  reasonable  ground  for  the  estimate,  and 
those  for  Europe  are  all  based  on  the  best  returns.  .60  per  cent,  is  the 
rate  of  increase  over  the  whole  period,  not  the  compound  rate  from 
3  ear  to  year,  which  would  be  greatly  lower. 


PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIAN  NATIONS. 


93 


Roman  CafJwUc  Poiuers. 


1786. 

1886.           Increase. 

Millions. 

Millions.        Millions. 

France      .        .        .        • 

26 

38 

Colonies  and  Dependencies 

2 

25 

... 

28 

63 

35 

Austria  and  Hungary- 

31 

38.8 

7.8 

Italy          .        .         .        . 

17-5 

30.2 

14.7 

Spain        .        .        .         . 

10.5 

17 

... 

Colonies   .        .        .        • 

20 

8 

... 

30-5 

25.2 

5.5  less. 

Portugal  .         .         .         . 

2.3 

4-9 

... 

Colonies    .        .        .        . 

12 

6.5 

■t 

14-3 

II. 4 

2.9  less. 

Belgium. 

3-5 

5-9 

2.4 

American  States     . 

30 

43 

13 

154.8 


217.5     72.9 


JV.^.— Political  changes  entirely  alter  tlie  relation  of  this  to 
former  tables. 


6.  The  Greek  Church  Powers. 

The  changes  which  have  taken  place  in  the 
relations  of  Eussia  and  Turkey  to  the  popula- 
tions of  Southern  Europe  during  the  century, 
and  the  expansion  of  the  former  in  Asia  and 
the  contraction  of  the  latter  in  JEurope,  make 
a  comparison  extremely  difficult,  and  we  do  not 
expect  much  unanimity  in  regard  to  the  follow- 
ing numbers.  They  are  the  best  we  can  frame 
in  view  of  the  past  as  well  as  of  the  present 
anomalous  state  of  these  powers. 


94 


A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 


Greek  Church  Powers. 


1786.  _ 

1886, 

Increase. 

Millions. 

Millions. 

JVIillions. 

Russia  and  Dependencies 

30 

109.5 

... 

Greece  1  .... 

... 

2.1 

... 

Roumanian 

... 

57 

... 

Smaller  States  i 

... 

3-1 

... 

120,4 


90.4 


7.  Protestantism, 

The  increase  of  the  populations  under  the 
power  of  Protestant  States'  is  not  relatively  so 
great  as  under  those  of  the  Greek  Church.  This 
is  owing  not  only  to  the  rapid  increase  of 
Russia  by  conquest  as  well  as  by  natural  in- 
crease, but  also  to  the  emancipation  of  the 
Greek  States  from  the  dominion  of  the  Moham- 
medan power  of  Turkey  since  the  commence- 
ment of  the  hundred  years.  But  for  that,  the 
increase  of  the  Protestant  and  Greek  powers 
would  have  been  nearly  equal  in  ratio,  but  the 
former  vastly  greater  in  extent,  as  we  shall  see 
from  the  following  table.  Here  also  territorial 
changes  make  accurate  comparison  with  former 
tables  impossible : — 

1  Being  all  subject  to  Turkey,  the  representative  of  I^^lllm. 


PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIAN  NATIONS. 


95 


Protestant  Church  Powers. 


1786. 

1885. 

Increase. 

Powers. 

Millions. 

Millions. 

Millions. 

Great  Britain  and  Ireland 

.      14 

37-5 

Colonies   . 

1-5 

16.5 

India 

70.0 

208.5 

Protected  States    . 

30.0 

57.8 

II5-5 

320.3 

204.8 

German  Empire 

7-5 

48 

Colonies        ,         , 

I 

7-5 

49 

41.5 

Holland    .        . 

2.7 

4-5 

Colonies 

.    20.0 

29.0 

22.7 

33-5 

10.8 

Sweden  and  Norway- 

6.0 

6.5 

•5 

Denmark 

2.4 

2.3 

.1 

United  States  of  America 

3.5 

57.5 

54 

157.6 

469.1 

3117 

IV.  It  is  impossible  to  separate  our  view  of 
the  increase  of  these  religions  from  their  con- 
nection with  race.  The  Mongolian,  the  Slav, 
and  the  Saxon  are  the  three  most  clearly  marked 
of  the  races  which  are  progressive  in  respect  of 
population.  The  professors  of  the  Eoman  Catho- 
lic religion  are  more  mixed,  though  the  Latin 
and  Celtic  races  predominate.  The  Slav  has  a 
great  advantage  in  respect  of  territory,  which 
gives  encouragement  to  increase,  but  the  Saxons 
are  making  up  for  this  defect  by  emigration, 
which  will  give  the  advantage  in  the  long  run. 

The  effect  of  the  increase  of  population  in 
giving  increase  of  power  leads  us  to  consider 


96        A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

the  important  question  of  the  bearing  of  the 
conquests  of  these  growing  powers  on  the  in- 
crease of  population  in  the  countries  conquered. 
This  is  most  clearly  brought  out  in  the  connec- 
tion of  England  with  India.  We  have  seen 
that  the  effect  of  this  conquest  has  been  to  add 
greatly  to  the  population  of  that  country — even 
although  the  exact  figures  we  have  given  may 
not  be  accepted,  the  fact  cannot  be  denied. 
The  same  may  be  said  on  a  limited  area  of  the 
Dutch  possessions  in  the  East.  The  rule  of 
France  in  Algeria  has  increased  the  population 
not  only  in  their  own  territory,  but  has  influenced 
the  surrounding  tribes  to  some  extent,  and  the 
semi-warlike  propaganda  of  Islam  in  the  Soudan 
has  led  to  more  of  peace  and  prosperity  among 
the  uncivilised  tribes,  and  a  consequent  increase 
of  population. 

The  populations  of  the  world,  in  so  far  as 
they  can  be  classed  under  the  heads  of  the 
principal  religions,  are  fairly  represented  in  the 
following  table,  from  which,  however,  we  exclude 
the  following : — 

Eetichism. — The  estimates  of  numbers  now, 
and  still  more  a  century  ago,  are  too  uncertain 
to  form  a  basis  of  comparison,  the  only  cer- 
tainty being  that  the  numbers  are,  taken  as  a 
whole,  slowly  on  the  decrease  where  not  protected 


PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIAN  NATIONS. 


97 


by  some  power  professing  a  higher  form  of 
religion. 

Buddhism,  which  is  not  now  the  prevailing 
religion  of  any  really  independent  power,  unless 
Siam  be  reckoned  one. 

Beahmanism,  which  only  exists  and  increases 
under  the  protection  of  Great  Britain. 

A  Comimrative  View  of  the  Pojmlation  of  the  Ruling  Powers  under 
the  Different  Dominant  Beligions  {in  millions). 


Religions, 

1786. 
30 

1886. 

Increase  in 

100  Years. 

Decrease  in 
100  Years. 

^  /                   j  Greek  Church 

120 

90 

•^    Christian.   )  Roman  Catholic 

154 

217 

63 

■5  I                      Protestant  . 

157 

468 

311 

0  \      Non-         Confucian     and  ) 
3      Christian.  }       Shinto      .           ( 

436 

279 

157 

... 

^                       (  Islam 

S9 

8q 

none 

Polytheism       .... 

70 

none 

... 

70 

Fetichism          .... 

175 

130 

45 

If  to  these  we  add  1 5  millions  which  we  have 
not  been  able  to  classify  under  any  of  the 
above  heads,  such  as  Siam  and  some  smaller 
States  in  Asia  and  Switzerland  in  Europe,  we 
shall  make  the  population  of  the  world  at  the 
present  time  about  1437  millions,  which  maybe 
represented  thus  : — 


98         A   CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

The  Population  of  the  World  under  the  Ruling  Powers  representing 
the  Principal  Religions^  with  the  increase  during  the  century 
{in  millions). 


17S6. 

1886. 

Increase. 

Decrease. 

Monotheistic 

,  Christian 

1  Non-Christian  . 

341 
363 

805 
487 

464 
124 

... 

Polytheistic 

. 

70 

none 

... 

70 

Fetich       . 

.         .         .         . 

175 

130 

45 

N.B. — None  of  these  figures  give  the  numbers  belonging  to  the 
different  religions.  That  is  a  different  question,  and  gives  very  different 
results. 

8.  Effect  of  British  Rule, 

The  effect  of  British  rule  on  the  population  of 
the  whole  world  is  a  most  important  factor  in 
the  future  of  the  world's  history.  Not  only  does 
her  influence  extend  over  the  peoples  directly 
governed,  but  over  the  tribes  bordering  on  her 
colonies  and  dependencies.  The  following  figures 
will  give  an  idea  of  the  extent  of  this  influence 
in  its  different  forms  at  the  end  of  1886,  calcu- 
lated at  the  rate  of  increase  from  the  last  and 
the  preceding  census  : — 


Great  Britain  and  Ireland 
Colonial  Possessions 
Indian  Possessions    . 
Native  States    . 


37,500,000 

16,500,000 

208,500,000 

57,800,000 

320,300,000 


PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIAN  NATIONS.  99 

If  this  enormous  aggregate  of  human  beings 
under  one  powerful  government  were  congre- 
gated in  one  compact  region  of  the  earth  it 
would  be  something  to  be  feared — a  power  that 
might  dominate  and  enslave  the  world ;  but 
scattered  as  it  is  over  the  whole  habitable  globe, 
its  power  to  benefit  the  human  race  is  much 
greater  than  its  power  to  oppress.  Peace  is  the 
condition  of  its  prosperity,  freedom  and  liberty 
are  essential  to  its  development,  and  beneficence 
or  philanthropy  the  justification  of  its  existence. 

If  we  merge  the  distinctions  which  separate 
the  three  divisions  of  the  Christian  Church,  there 
are  only  three  religions  in  the  world  which  are 
the  dominant  belief  of  the  ruling  race  in  any 
country  which  has  any  pretension  to  civilisation 
even  in  its  most  crude  form.  Leaving  out  of 
account  savage  tribes,  with  their  unformulated 
beliefs,  all  the  rest  of  the  human  race,  with  a  few 
exceptions,  which  are  more  apparent  than  real, 
are  governed  hy  races  ivhich  believe  in  Christia- 
nity, Mohanimedanism^or  Confucianism,  A'^j>  all 
THE  THREE  ARE  MONOTHEISTIC.  The  otlier  systems 
are  dethroned.  The  reins  of  government  are 
taken  from  the  hands  of  all  idolatrous  religions 
by  races  holding  the  higher  and  purer  faith.  Hin- 
duism, an  indefinite  expression  for  the  countless 
forms  assumed  by  the  Brahminical  religion,  has 
lost  all  rule  in  India.     About  four-fifths  of  its 


ICO       A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

professors  are  under  the  direct  government  of 
our  Christian  Queen,  and  those  under  the  ad- 
ministration of  native  princes  are  influenced  and 
controlled  by  the  Imperial  Government  of  India. 
Buddhism  is  not  the  religion  of  any  really 
independent  State.  All  its  votaries  are  directly 
or  indirectly  under  the  sway  of  Christian  or  Con- 
fucian governments.  Ceylon,  Burmah,  Assam, 
the  Malay  Peninsula,  and  even  such  a  State 
as  Nepal,  ruled  by  the  Hindu  race,  has  its 
British  Eesident.  The  apparent  exceptions, 
like  Siam,  Annam,  Tonquin,  and  others,  are  less 
or  more  under  the  influence  of  Ens^land  or 
France.  The  Buddhists  of  China  and  the 
dependent  States  to  the  north  and  west  are 
entirely  subordinate  to  the  Ancestral  religion  of 
the  country,  which  is  not  only  the  religion  of  the 
ruling  and  educated  classes,  but  in  one  sense 
the  religion  of  the  mass  of  the  people.  Through- 
out the  length  and  breadth  of  China,  yviih  the 
exception  of  its  dependencies,  there  will  not  be 
found  more  than  a  few  millions,  including  Jews 
and  Mohammedans,  who  do  not  profess  and 
practise  the  Confucian  or  Ancestral  system  of 
worship,  even  though  a  large  proportion  of  them 
take  advantage  of  the  rites  and  prayers  of  the 
Buddhist  ceremonial  on  important  occasions  in 
domestic  and  social  life.  The  three  religions 
of   China   are  mutually  supplementary  of  one 


PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIAN  NATIONS.  loi 

another :  the  system  of  Confucius  is  based  on 
human  reason  and  history,  that  of  Laoutze 
appeals  to  the  imagination  and  the  superstitious 
elements  in  our  nature,  while  Buddhism  rests  on 
the  emotions  and  sentiments  of  the  man.  But 
while  in  some  degree  suited  by  their  combina- 
tion to  meet  the  wants  of  humanity,  they  fail 
to  satisfy  it,  and  thus  tend  respectively  to  scep- 
ticism, mysticism,  and  ritualism.  You  will  often 
find  a  Chinaman  practising  all  three  without 
any  sense  of  impropriety,  but  usually  he  gives  a 
precedence  to  that  which  appeals  most  to  the 
prevailing  tendency  of  his  natural  disposition, 
and  will  give  a  preference  to  the  religion  of  Con- 
fucius, Laoutze,  or  Buddha  as  reason,  imagina- 
tion, or  feeling  predominate  in  his  nature. 

There  are  two  things  which  give  an  over- 
whelming preponderance  to  the  Ancestral  wor- 
ship of  China.  First,  the  Chinaman  is  essentially 
conservative,  and  to  relinquish  the  faith  of  his 
fathers  is  contrary  to  his  nature.  Second,  reason 
or  common  sense  is  the  basis  of  his  character ; 
in  imagination  and  emotion  he  is  essentially 
weak.  Hence  the  mass  of  Chinamen  are  Con- 
fucianists.  The  other  more  modern  systems  are 
only  subordinate,  and  are  not  so  used  as  to 
interfere  with  the  old  creed.  Japan  is  no  ex- 
ception, for  there,  though  Buddhism  is  more 
potent  than  it  is  in  China,  yet  even  there  the 


102       A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

Shinto  religion  occupies  somewhat  the  same 
place  that  Confucianism  does  in  China,  but  has 
not  the  same  firm  hold  of  the  less  conservative 
and  more  versatile  race.  Buddhism,  as  modified 
by  the  Shinto  and  Confucian  systems,  may  be 
allowed  to  be  the  dominant  religion  of  Japan ; 
but  having  so  limited  a  sphere  of  direct  control 
as  it  exerts  in  Japan,  Siam,  and  the  neigh- 
bouring State  of  that  southern  peninsula,  it 
cannot  be  classed  as  one  of  the  principal  religions 
of  the  world  in  so  far  as  our  present  inquiry  is 
concerned.  It  has  exerted  and  does  still  exert 
an  influence  on  other  religions,  and  thereby  on 
the  country  in  which  it  exists,  and  to  that  extent 
affects  population.  A  very  small  sect  may  in 
this  way  exert  a  powerful  influence.  No  student 
of  English  history  can  doubt  that  the  Quakers 
have  exerted  an  influence  on  the  moral  tone  and 
on  the  legislation  of  our  country  far  beyond  that 
which  their  limited  numbers  would  have  led  a 
mere  statistician  to  expect. 

We  have  not  time  to  draw  the  many  lessons 
suggested  by  the  facts  brought  before  us  in  this 
chapter.  We  would  only  call  attention  to  the 
responsibility  involved  in  the  position  now  held 
by  the  Christian  States  of  the  w^orld,  and  espe- 
cially that  of  Protestant  States  to  which  Provi- 
dence has  assigned  such  a  large  preponderance 
of  power  and   influence.     A  third  part  of  the 


PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIAN  NATIONS.  103 

population  of  the  entire  world  is  under  the 
dominion  of  Protestant  powers.  How  different 
from  the  condition  of  the  world  a  hundred  years 
ago.  How  much  more  does  it  differ  from  that 
before  or  even  after  the  Reformation. 

We  may  add  what  a  hope  it  is  fitted  to 
inspire  in  the  Protestant  Church.  The  natural 
law  increase  of  population  is  in  her  favour.  If 
only  true  to  her  family  religion  she  will  make 
rapid  way  as  compared  with  other  religions, 
whether  in  the  unreformed  churches  or  in 
heathen  and  Mohammedan  systems,  while  the 
conquests  of  Protestant  nations  have  added 
vastly  to  the  influence  they  may  exert,  if  only 
true  to  God  and  their  own  profession.  But 
everything  depends  on  this,  and  this  is  the  great 
source  of  anxiety.  There  is,  however,  much 
ground  for  hope.  With  all  our  faults  there  is 
much  that  is  good  and  true  in  our  social, 
political,  and  religious  life,  and  with  the  vast 
amount  of  light  now  filling  the  world,  and  with 
the  Bible  as  a  hand-book  in  every  land,  it  needs 
only  the  descent  of  the  Spirit  of  God  in  His 
quickening  power  to  turn  the  streams  of  moral 
culture  and  religious  knowledge  into  the  good 
wine  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 


\ 


104       A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 


Increase  of  Population  in  India. 

Starting  with  what  we  may  now  call  the  known  rate  of  increase 
during  the  last  nine  years,  which  we  have  seen  was  not  a  favour- 
able period,  but  on  that  account  may  be  all  the  more  represen- 
tative of  the  state  of  India  when  it  was  not  so  completely  under 
our  control  and  subject  to  those  peaceable  and  sanitary  condi- 
tions which  have  been  of  gradual  and  comparatively  recent 
growth,  we  have  a  standard  of  measure  of  great  value  in  the 
results  of  the  two  last  returns. 

We  have  another  valuable  means  of  arriving  at  an  approximate 
accuracy  of  the  population  at  earlier  periods,  viz.,  the  occasional 
census  of  particular  parts  of  India  which  not  only  gave  the  rate 
of  increase  for  those  parts,  but  enable  those  interested  in  such 
inquiries  to  form  more  accurate  estimates  for  the  whole  of  India 
before  any  census  was  taken. 

This  "measure"  must,  however,  be  used  under  two  impor- 
tant limitations.  First,  that  the  extent  of  the  British  dominion 
and  influence  was  much  less  at  the  commencement  than  at  the 
close  of  the  hundred  years.  Second,  that  the  same  is  true  of  the 
sanitary  conditions  of  our  Indian  Empire.  Again,  as  the  exten- 
sion of  the  British  dominions  and  influence  has  been  gradual,  the 
rate  of  increase  of  population  must  have  been  also  gradual.  On 
these  grounds  our  measure  will  be  a  diminishing  one,  as  we  go 
back  from  the  known  to  the  less  known  period,  but  as  it  will 
diminish  at  a  gradual  rate,  we  may  be  allowed  to  calculate  for  its 
diminution  as  we  recede  in  time,  in  the  same  way  as  a  scientist 
is  compelled  to  make  allowance  for  the  increase  or  decrease  in  the 
length  of  his  measure  or  pendulum  as  he  changes  his  latitude 
north  or  south,  if  he  has  no  means  of  compensating  for  the  tfl'ects 
of  cold  and  heat.  ^Ye  have  no  "  compensation  rods  "with  which 
to  measure  our  rate  of  increase,  but  w^e  may  apply  a  rule  which 
will  correct  the  "errors  of  variation."  This  must  be  by  taking 
into  consideration  the  different  conditions  of  society  at  dift'erent 
periods,  as  we  recede  from  the  present  ascertained  annual  rate  of 
increase  during  the  nine  years  from  1872  to  1881. 

The  principle  on  which  "vve  shall  proceed  is  to  reduce  the 
annual  rate  of  increase  as  we  go  back  toward  the  period  when 


PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIAN  NATIONS.  105 

the  present  conditions  did  not  exist  in  all  their  force,  and  when 
the  movement  of  the  popuktion  must  have  been  much  less.  If 
we  went  back  to  the  period  prior  to  our  rule  we  would  find  it  had 
been  kept  almost  stationary  by  the  constant  fluctuations  between 
periods  of  comparative  prosperity  and  consequent  increase,  and 
periods  of  destructive  w\ars,  and  desolating  famines,  and  wasting 
pestilence.  It  is  a  matter  of  much  uncertainty  whether  the 
population  of  India  had  materially  increased  from  the  days  of 
Alexander  to  the  period  of  the  British  conquest  ;  on  the  contrary, 
there  is  good  ground  for  the  opinion  that  it  had  declined. 

If  we  applied  the  measure  of  the  increase  during  the  last  known 
period  to  the  whole  of  the  hundred  years,  we  would  only  have  to 
divide  the  population  at  the  present  time  by  two,  as  .70  per  cent, 
per  annum  of  increase  will  double  the  population  in  a  hundred 
years.  By  making  allowance  for  the  increase  from  February  of 
1 88 1  to  the  end  of  1886  the  population  of  India  would,  in  round 
numbers,  be  more  than  260,000,000,  and  in  1786  it  would  have 
been  130,000,000  ;  but  the  conditions  of  society  were  not  such  as 
to  make  such  a  rate  of  increase  possible. 

The  process  by  w^hich  we  would  attempt  to  reach  a  solution  of 
the  question  is  as  follows.  The  average  increase  during  the  nine 
years  for  which  we  find  the  rate  was  .70  per  cent,  per  annum, 
which  is  a  low  one  ;  we  apply  the  same  rate  to  the  three  decades 
from  1886  back  to  1856,  shortly  before  the  government  was 
assumed  by  the  Queen  and  her  Ministers,  from  which  time  the 
sanitary,  educational,  and  administrative  arrangements  for  the 
promotion  of  health  and  peace,  and  consequent  increase  of  popu- 
lation, were  largely  developed.  Prior  to  that  time  we  would 
apply  a  gradually  diminishing  rate  of  increase  each  decade  as  we 
go  back  to  1786,  so  that  at  the  beginning  of  the  hundred  years 
the  rate  would  be  onhj  half  oi  what  it  was  at  the  close.  By  our 
descending  scale  we  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  tlie  population 
of  India  in  1786  would  be  about  150,000,000.  If  this  number 
were  doubled,  as  it  would  be  in  the  hundred  years  by  the  rate 
of  .70,  at  its  close  it  would  have  made  the  population  in  1886 
300,000,000,  so  that  40,000,000  are  thrown  off  for  the  worse  con- 
ditions of  the  earlier  period.  This  seems  as  large  a  deduction 
as  could  be  allowed.  Starting  with  this  assumed  number,  and 
with  .35  as  the  rate  of  increase  for  the  first  ten  years,  ju-it  the 


io6       A  CENTURY  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROGRESS. 

half  of  what  it  is  known  to  have  been,  for  the  last  thirty  years, 
and  increasing  at  the  rate  of  .05  for  each  succeeding  decade  up  to 
1856,  and  multiplying  by  .70  for  the  three  remaining  decades, 
the  following  is  the  result,  roughly  calculating  by  the  average 
for  the  ten  years,  not  minutely  year  by  year,  or  what  might  be 
called  the  compound  rate  of  increase  : — 


Table  showing  Progressive  Increase  of  the  Population  of  India  during 
the  last  hundred  years,  on  estimates  given  above.  {Figures  below 
a  thousand  disregarded. ) 


Years. 

Rate  of 
Population. 

Increase  of  India. 

Aggregate  as 
estimated. 

1786 

150,000,000 

1786-96 

.35 

5,250,000 

155,250,000 

I 796-1 806 

.40 

6,210,000 

161,460,000 

1806-16 

.45 

7,365,000 

168,825,000 

1816-26 

.50 

8,444,000 

177,276,000 

1826-36 

.55 

9,749,000 

187,015,000 

1836-46 

.60 

11,220,000 

198,235,000 

1846-56 

.65 

12,885,000 

211,120,000 

1856-66 

.70 

14,778,000 

225,898,000 

1866-76 

.70 

15,822,000 

241,720,000 

1876-86 
Total 

.70 
increase  in 

16,920,000 
1  hundred  years, 

258,640,000 

108,640,000 

This  coincidence  we  do  not  take  as  a  'proof  of  the  accuracy  of 
our  hypothesis,  but  as  discoveries  are  rarely  made  without  some 
hypothesis  to  start  with,  the  coincidence,  based  as  it  is  on  a  care- 
ful combination,  of  ascertained  facts  as  to  the  rate  of  increase  of 
late  years,  and  a  careful  consideration  of  the  political  and  social 
condition  of  the  country  during  the  period,  has  its  value.  We  do 
not  assume  that  the  rate  was  uniform  over  the  whole  time.  The 
history  of  India  has  never  been  an  uninteresting  level.  It  has 
always  had  its  ups  and  downs,  but  the  worst  of  our  wars  has 
never  been  of  a  devastating  kind  like  those  of  our  Asiatic  fore- 
runners, and  the  tendency  of  our  administration  has  always  been 
upwards  and  onwards  in  the  path  of  peace  and  progress. 


IJ^DEX. 


America,  population  of,  48,  71,  72 
Ancestral  worship  in  China,  90 
Atheists,  62 

Bertillon,  Dr.  J.,  44,  47 
Bible,  regenerator  of  Europe,  40 
Birth-rate,  2,  31 
Bodio,  Signor,  12,  23,  31 
Brahmanism,    no    dominion,    80, 

97,99 
British  rule,  the  effect  of,  98,  104 
Buddhism,  no  dominion,  79,  97, 

ICK> 

Charlemagne,  67 
China,  87,  88,  89,  loi 
Christianity,  influence  of,  36-41, 

61 
Commerce  and  population,  9,  65 
Confucianism,  82 

Emigration,  the  effect  of,  9,  65, 66 

Fetichism  and  population,  77,  96 
Feudal  system,  66 
Food,  increase  of,  9,  10 
France,  census  in,  21,  44,  59,  62 

Greek  Church,  4,  18,  46 

Increase  of  population,  6,  12,  25, 
28,  29,  48,  49,  55,  66 


Increase,  natural  laws  of,  8,  33,  53 

religious  significance  of,  16, 

27 

comparative,  of  Protestants, 

Roman  Catholics,  and  mem- 
bers of  the  Greek  Church,  25,  26 

of  population  in  India,  104, 

105,  106 

of  population  in  China,  91,  92 

Ireland,  43,  56,  63-65 

Malthus,  10,  II,  68,  69 
Mohammedanism  declining,  81 
Monotheism,  81,  99 

Polytheism,  79 

Population,  increase  of,  6,  28,  29 

of  Europe  in  1 786,  1 3,  67,  69 

increase  of,  24,  27,  61,  95 

influence  of,  102,  103 

Rate  at  which  population  doubles, 

I5>  16,  33,  43 
increase  of,  in  Europe,  34, 

52,  56,  95 
Reformation,  3,  28,  39,  66,  67 
Reformers,  four  simultaneous,  75 
Religion,  influence  of,  41, 60, 73-82 
Roman  Catholic  missions,  17,  18 
Roman  Catholics  in  Europe,  24,  63 

in  America,  70,  71,  93 

Russia,  5,  33 


ic8 


INDEX. 


Saxon  race,  Protestant,  4,  27 
an  emigrating,  54,  55 

Table  comparing  the  numbers 
belonging  to  Protestant,  Roman 
Catholic,  and  Greek  Churches, 
22 

showing  States  of  Europe  in 

1786,  30 

showing  increase  of  popula- 
tion of  Europe  during  present 
century,  31 

showing  increase  of  popula- 
tion of  Europe  over  two  different 
periods,  32 

showing  annual  rate  of  in- 
crease in  the  population  of  the 
countries  of  Europe,  34 

showing  tlie  periods  in  which 

the  population  of  Britain  has 
doubled,  44 

showing  how  the  increase  of 

population  affects  the  destiny 
of  nations,  45 

• showing  increase  of  popu- 
lation in  United  States  of 
America,  49 

— —  showing  population  of  Pro- 
■  testant  and  Roman  Catholic 
powers  in  Europe,  30 

of  the  population  of  Europe 

under   three    religious    groups, 

51,52 
showing  the  increase  of  popu- 


lation for  ten  years  prior  to  last 
census,  57,  58 

of  Roman  Catholics  in  Eng- 
land, 63 

of  Roman  Catholics  in  Scot- 
land, 64 

of  Roman  Catholics  in  Ire- 
land, 65 

of     Roman     Catholics     in 

America,  71,  72,  93 

showing  state  of  Moham- 
medan powers,  82 

showing  increase  of  popula- 
tion under  Monotheistic  an- 
cestral worship,  92 

showing  increase  of  popu- 
lation under  Greek  Church 
powers,  95 

showing  increase  of  popula- 
tion under  Protestant  powers,  95 

showing  the  population  of 

ruling  powers  under  dominant 
religions,  97 

showing  increase  during  the 

centur}'  in  principal  religions  of 
the  world,  98 

showing  extent  of  the  in- 
fluence of  British  rule,  98 

showing  progressive  increase 

of  population  of  India,  106 

Wealth  of  the  French  and  Saxon 

compared,  61 
Westphalia,  treaty  of,  49 


PRINTED   BY  BATLANTYNE,  HANSON  AND  CO. 
EUINBURf.H  AND  LONDON. 


Date  Due 

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